


It's Not The Years, It's The Mileage

by MovesLikeBucky



Series: Not The Years [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Indiana Jones Series
Genre: Alcohol, Animal Death, Ark of the Covenant, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Car Chase, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Description of burns, Fade to Black, First Kiss, Happy Ending, If You Squint - Freeform, Indiana Jones Fusion, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Scene: St James's Park 1862 (Good Omens), Pulp Adventure, Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol, References to Ancient Egypt, Sharing a Bed, Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), and gets trapped in a glass case of Emotion, bickerflirting, but really it's just a demon trap, but the animal works for the nazis so, crowley unionizes some snakes, die nazi scum, don't worry he's fine, except the nazis they're all dead, it's not like right after but it's important, light body horror, nazis but they all die, no snakes were harmed in the making of this picture, slight mentions of trueforms, temporary implied character death, temporary implied discorporation, the inherent tenderness of healing miracles, they just got scolded a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24274681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/pseuds/MovesLikeBucky
Summary: “Dr. Fell,” says the first, “your specialty is religious artifacts, is it not?”“More or less,” Aziraphale says, fidgeting with his hands.“Then you’re just the person we need,” the second agent says as he pulls out a few leaves of paper.  “Our latest field reports put them somewhere called Tanis.  We know from the information we’ve intercepted that they’re searching specifically for religious artifacts, but other than that we haven’t the foggiest idea what it is they’re looking for.”The first takes a sip from his glass of water, then pointedly stares at Aziraphale.  “Any idea what it might be?”They stare Aziraphale down like it’s an interrogation.  Like a test he hasn’t studied for.  Like any of his meetings with Gabriel.Aziraphale freezes in his seat. Centuries - millennia, even - have passed since he last saw the Ark.  Since he had walked with the slaves through all of that pain and suffering; tried to be a helping hand to Moses.  He had been there when it was constructed, when the tablets were laid inside.  He knew its power.  He’d seen it.He hadn’t been there when it was lost.  Had he known it would be, he would have destroyed it himself.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Not The Years [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796947
Comments: 297
Kudos: 274





	1. I'm Your Goddamn Partner!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This may seem familiar to a lot of you; and if you found your way here from the previous upload, welcome back! <3
> 
> For those of you who don't recognize this, this is a Good Omens and Raiders of the Lost Ark fusion, with Aziraphale and Crowley standing in for Indy and Marion - but make it canon compliant xD
> 
> This is largely based on the screen cap redraws done by the amazing YamiSnuffles.
> 
> For those of you wondering why I'm reuploading, I'll make a long story short. I was not happy with the first two chapters of this. They were not to my standards and needed a rework. After overhauling them, I'm posting again in earnest.
> 
> Chapter 1 is here today, Chapter 2 will go up this Thursday. After that, I'll update on Saturdays (with chapter 3 coming next week!)
> 
> I want to thank every single one of you who have jumped over here from the old one <3 To those of you here for the first time, Hello!

**Oxford University; 1936.**

The clutter around Aziraphale’s office is second only to the clutter in his bookshop. Despite this, everything has its proper place. After almost six millennia, the angel has truly nailed down the concept of “organized chaos”.

He still isn’t sure why he decided to take up a position as a History Professor at Oxford. It has proven to be more of a bother than anything else at this point.

Heaven certainly hadn’t charged him with it; they rarely charge him with anything these days. The world had become quite volatile in this century and souls were streaming in one way or another without any of his help.

Truth be told, he’d been quite bored. Old bookshops and dead authors were the only company for a lonely angel.

He’d considered it a stroke of luck when one of his regular customers was appointed vice-chancellor and offered him a job; he hadn’t really had a reason to refuse.

Aziraphale finds passing knowledge on to the next generation rewarding. His knowledge of antiquities and religious artifacts in particular is extremely appreciated at the school and among his academic peers. 1

Even so, any time Sir George Hill comes creeping around to his office, he begins to suspect it’s all a very bad joke. The infamous Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum has never once visited his office with good news.

“Dr. Fell, surely you know how valuable your work has been to the Museum,” the director says while idly shuffling through the papers and tomes that litter Aziraphale’s desk, “You’ve been completely indispensable to us these past years.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Aziraphale huffs as he follows behind the man and puts papers back in their proper (if disorganized) place, “And I’m also sure I want nothing to do with whatever it is you want for the museum this time. Those artifacts belong to the cultures that created them! I’ll stake my entire reputation on that.”

“And yet they’re all cultures of the Empire,” Hill says with a laugh, picking up an ancient-looking scroll and turning it over in his hands. “It’s not theft if it’s just relocation.”

Hill grins at him in that particularly slimy way of his. It makes Aziraphale sick to his stomach, these outdated Victorian modes of thinking. Everything belongs to the person with the most money and the most guns. Some things are too much, even for heavenly intervention.

After the last instance in Peru (which culminated in being chased by a boulder, nearly crushed by a stone door, and nearly being skewered with arrows) he’d decided he was finished helping the museum in their fools’ errands. 

“Or call it borrowing, if it makes you feel better,” Hill adds, sensing Aziraphale’s disdain. “Besides, it’s not me who wants your help this time.”

“Oh, it had better not be that blowhard Carter, I’ve had enough of him to last a lifetime.” Aziraphale says as he practically rips the scroll from Hill’s hands, “And please do stop touching everything, I have it all in perfect order!”

Hill shrugs, “It’s SIS, Dr. Fell. I’m afraid you can’t wiggle your way out of this one, old boy.”

“SIS? British military intelligence?” Aziraphale scoffs, “You must be joking, what on earth do they need with a history professor?”

“They didn’t tell me, only wanted me to put them in touch with you, hence my presence in your office now.” Hill looks around with mild revulsion at the chaos of Aziraphale’s office, “Tell me, does old Lindsay really have no issues with the mess here?”

“The Vice-Chancellor allows me whatever I need to get my job done,” Aziraphale says proudly. “As to the state of my office, I’ll have you know it’s perfectly organized in a way I see fit.”

“Yes, quite obviously,” Hill says, surveying the room with a judgemental gaze.

“Well if it’s British Intelligence I doubt they’ll let me be,” the angel sighs, resigning himself to his fate, “When am I to meet them?”

“They made us a lunch appointment for tomorrow afternoon, I understand it’s at the Ritz of all places.” He turns to leave before adding, “One o’clock- don’t be late, Dr. Fell!”

Aziraphale steadies himself against the desk as the door closes. 

The Ritz. How pretentious could they be?

\---

**The Ritz, London**

Despite the particular brand of company, Aziraphale tries his best to enjoy himself. This would be much easier if these SIS nitwits would just get to the point.

Two agents had met Aziraphale and Hill at the door and they’d quickly been ushered inside to their table. That had been over an hour ago.

Aziraphale always enjoys savoring a good meal, but he decidedly does not enjoy being put upon. And there are many other places he could be right now, and far less stuffy ones at that. To put it bluntly: he’s at the end of his rope.

He’s currently being subjected to what passes as a joke to the first of the two, who one wouldn’t call tall. Something extremely insensitive about the Irish and potatoes. Aziraphale lets his fork clatter unceremoniously to his plate.

“Something bothering you, Dr. Fell?” asks the second agent, who is not short.

“I just rather wish you would get to the point,” Aziraphale says with a huff, “I really do have quite a lot of work to be doing, and I don’t see the point in my being here if we’re just going to faff about the whole time.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” says the first agent, “alright then - you’re familiar with René Belloq, I’d assume?”

“The Frenchman, yes, I’ve had the displeasure of running into him a few times.”

René Belloq is an up-and-coming French archaeologist who is just a bit too obsessed with the occult. He fancies himself a ‘demon hunter’. The whole thing is laughable and the main reason he isn’t accepted in many of the more astute circles of academia. No one can take the man seriously.

Aziraphale thought the whole thing ridiculous. He knew what it took to catch a demon, and Belloq was  _ not _ equipped for the struggle.

After all, the man’s taste in wine was abysmal at best.

“According to our intel, he’s begun working with the Germans,” the first agent says through a mouthful of food.

“What would the Germans want with that laughingstock?” Hill said with a chuckle.

“They’ve been dipping more and more into the occult and the supernatural as of late,” says the second agent, “so, they hired an archaeologist with a similar mindset.”

“Similar mindset?” Aziraphale laughs, “You mean someone in the Nazi party is taking Belloq seriously? I mean, I can’t say much for the intelligence of anyone calling themselves a Nazi but even so.”

“It appears they want his specialized knowledge to find an object of great power,” the first agent says while the second agent finishes, “One that, if rumor serves, could be disastrous in the hands of the wrong people.”

“Why involve me then?” Aziraphale asks, “I’m just a history professor who’s been on a few misadventures.”

“Yes, I fail to see what exactly myself and Dr. Fell have to do with any of this,” Hill adds, inserting himself back into the conversation.

The agents promptly ignore him.

“Dr. Fell,” says the first, “your specialty is religious artifacts, is it not?”

“More or less,” Aziraphale says, fidgeting with his hands.

“Then you’re just the person we need,” the second agent says as he pulls out a few leaves of paper. “Our latest field reports put them somewhere called Tanis. We know from the information we’ve intercepted that they’re searching specifically for religious artifacts, but other than that we haven’t the foggiest idea what it is they’re looking for.”

The first takes a sip from his glass of water, then pointedly stares at Aziraphale. “Any idea what it might be?” 

They stare Aziraphale down like it’s an interrogation. Like a test he hasn’t studied for. Like any of his meetings with Gabriel.

Aziraphale freezes in his seat. Centuries - millennia, even - have passed since he last saw the Ark. Since he had walked with the slaves through all of that pain and suffering; tried to be a helping hand to Moses. He had been there when it was constructed, when the tablets were laid inside. He knew its power. He’d seen it.

He hadn’t been there when it was lost. Had he known it would be, he would have destroyed it himself.

“There are legends,” Aziraphale says softly, nervously loosening his tie. “Myths, of course, nothing substantial. Nothing any reputable historian would believe nowadays; but were quite popular in years gone by.”

Hill stares at him with concern.

“Tanis,” Aziraphale continues, pointedly ignoring Hill, “has been believed for some time to be a possible resting place for the Ark.”

The two agents look at each other and then back to Aziraphale.

“The Ark,” asks the one who is not short, “You mean, like Noah’s Ark? A big boat?”

“Oh, heavens, no,” Aziraphale says quickly, “not that one, no. This would be the Ark of the Covenant. Big carved box, holds the broken pieces of the original stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.”

“It’s been rumored in so many places, Tanis always seemed the most reasonable,” Hill says, still trying to look smart, “but it’s a flight of fancy at best.”

“So was Tanis, until today,” Aziraphale points out excitedly, turning back to the agents, “You’re certain they’ve found the city of Tanis, absolutely positive?”

“From the codes that we could break, yes.”

“It’s not much to go on,” the angel’s nervousness leaves him. Adventuring might not have been his usual style, but over the past several years he’s grown to love the thrill of the chase. Even begun to fancy himself a bit of a treasure hunter. “But it is something.”

“How would one even go about finding it?” Hill asks.

“According to the books I have on the subject,” Aziraphale furrows his brow in thought, wishing he had a couple of the old volumes with him for reference 2 , “There’s a room somewhere in Tanis called the Well of Souls, that’s where the Ark is allegedly housed.”

“And how would one find this Well of Souls?” asks the not-tall agent.

“For that, you need a special staff,” he takes out a pencil that he definitely already had in his jacket pocket 3 and starts sketching out the headpiece on a cocktail napkin. “There’s another building in Tanis, allegedly, that has a map of the entire city built into the floor.”

His voice goes quieter as he sketches; the other three men lean in closer, enraptured by the story.

“According to the legends, if you have the Staff of Ra and the sun hits it just right,” Aziraphale turns the napkin around so the other three can see the sketch, his voice barely a whisper, “it will illuminate the building that houses the Well of Souls, and that, my dear fellows, is how you find the Ark of the Covenant.”

A tense silence falls as all four men looked at each other. Suddenly all four break into laughter.

“Of course,” Hill says through his tears, “It’s all rumor and myth, it doesn’t really exist.”

“Either way,” says the first agent, calming his own laughter, “We must be sure. From the memos we’ve intercepted, Hitler believes this object to be a great source of power.”

“Dr. Fell, you’ve been officially recruited by the SIS. It is your duty, to King and Country, to find whatever it is before Belloq and the Nazis do,” adds the second agent.

Begrudgingly, Aziraphale does have to agree. The Ark is something that cannot fall into Nazi hands.

“Yes, of course, happy to help,” Aziraphale says through a forced smile. The rest of the meeting passes in a haze, too many thoughts muddling his mind to focus on it.

He would need the headpiece to that staff, and unfortunately he knew just where to look.

\---

**On a Plane Leaving Harmondsworth Aerodrome**

Aziraphale thoughts wander as he boards the small airplane. Sure, he could miracle his way to Nepal, but he isn’t sure how much Heaven is keeping track of these days. Not to mention the temperature differential might just discorporate him anyway.

No, he would have to get there the human way.

It wasn’t surprising that they wanted him to find the damn thing, and of course he’d need that headpiece. Only one individual could possibly know where it was.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t spoken to them in nigh on seventy-five years.

Aziraphale sighs and takes his seat, removing his hat. Of all the rotten luck he could possibly have, and all the rotten memories he’d rather forget.

That day in St. James’s Park had been one of the worst the angel had experienced. If he had known just how quickly Crowley would shut him out of his life, he would have acted differently.

Or at least, he thinks he might have. Something about hindsight and all that. But it’s hard to mitigate reactions when your best friend (whom Aziraphale might possibly, if he were pressed and prodded and definitely very, very drunk, admit to having some romantic attachments to) asks for the means to end his own life.

After ten years of no contact, Aziraphale hadn’t been able to stand it any longer. He’d used whatever means at his disposal to try to find Crowley and apologize.

His first bet had been a dingy bar in Shanghai; some odd demon he’d threatened in an alleyway had told him there were rumors that Crowley had taken to singing there while tempting patrons to gamble. Aziraphale had thanked him kindly by smiting him. By the time he made it to Club Weatherwax, Crowley was gone.

Things had gone similarly in Portugal. Then Venice. Then India, where aside from a run in with some very strange locals with a penchant for human hearts and ancient stones, things had been completely uneventful 4 .

But it seemed every time he got close, Crowley would slip past him. It was quite obvious the demon was not in the mood to talk, and especially not to him. He’d decided to give Crowley his space.

He’d given up thirty years ago. As of now, Crowley’s last known location was Nepal, and as far as Aziraphale can tell, he’d stayed there.

Aziraphale takes a small book out of his bag that he’d brought along for some light reading, settling in for the long flight. He doesn’t notice the shadowy figure watching him from the back of the plane.

\---

**Nepal**

Nepal is a fucking dreadful place. Cold and snowy at all times of the year, absolute bollocks to a serpent.

Crowley’s disdain for being found is the only thing outweighing his disdain for the weather. The last person he wants to talk to is that stuffy, uptight, nonsense of an angel. 

_ Let him keep chasing me _ , he’d thought when he came here back in the early days of the century,  _ he ought to once in a while. _

He hadn’t expected Aziraphale to actually take the hint and stop. Couldn’t that idiot tell when he was being goaded? With nothing better to do, Crowley had holed up here and stayed put. Hell wasn’t partial to cold weather, so they rarely came calling.

And really, the locals were just so fucking easy.

He’d opened a bar, aptly named The Serpent, and performed his minor temptations on the patrons.

Nothing too flashy. Some local coveting his neighbor’s wife, some missionary stealing money from his parishioners, a Sherpa swindling a farmer out of more goats than his cow is worth.

And occasionally, on nights like tonight, they gamble all of their life savings away in greed.

Directly across from Crowley is a ridiculous beast of a man; one he knows to be on the run and wanted by the authorities in several different countries. They’re both nine shots into some of the demon’s best (and strongest) scotch. Crowley knows where his advantages lie. He’s wiry and scrawny - looks like a lightweight. His long hair gives him a more feminine appearance, which tends to get underestimated around these parts. His dark glasses keep his eyes hidden; they can’t see how bloodshot they might be. Sure, the room is currently spinning at a less than ideal pace, but he can still hold on for a bit yet.

The guy across from him, however, is pale as a ghost. Only a matter of time now.

The revelers around them are causing a ruckus, waving their money around, hoping to score big time as Crowley reaches out a shaky hand for his tenth shot. The crowd goes silent when he picks it up and brings it ever so slowly to his lips.

Crowley gulps down the liquid fire fast as he can, adding in a bit of a sway for dramatics. He turns the shot glass over and slams it to the table. The lamplight flickers in his dark glasses as a twisted smile spreads across his face.

The crowd cheers and more money exchanges hands, no telling how the bets are lining up at this point. The important thing right now is that the idiot across from him bet everything on himself. 

He watches as the man pours himself another shot, watches him throw it back. The crowd waits with bated breath. The man starts to laugh, and Crowley starts to worry. Three more shots would be his limit and he’s painfully close to it already. Sure he  _ could _ sober up, but where would be the fun in that?

Some of the people surrounding the lummox clap him on the shoulders, ruffling his hair. The rest jump around joyously, good fortune finding them at last.

Until the man falls to the ground with a thud.

An uproar surges through the crowd as they argue back and forth about who owes who how much. Crowley takes a moment to sober himself up before attempting to close up for the night.

“Alright, that’s enough you lot,” he stands, taking his own winnings as the bar patrons grumble and start filtering towards the door. “Everybody out! Show’s over, you lose some and you lose some, go on then! Give it another go next time, if you’re so bloody worried about it!”

Crowley waves his bartender off with the last of the locals making their way into the cold. He starts to gather up the shot glasses when he hears the door open.

“We’re closed,” he says without looking up, “come back and lose your money tomorrow night!”

“Isn’t it a bit unfair,” starts the familiar voice, “having drinking contests with humans when you’re of celestial stock?”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley hisses out, not bothering to hide the hurt that comes from saying that blasted name. He can’t turn and look, nor can he pin his emotions down. He’s angry. He’s relieved. He’s a rather unsettling mixture of the two. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve–” he starts, but cuts himself off almost immediately. Aziraphale is leaning against the door frame, decked out like some kind of adventurer out of those silly books the villagers have been reading lately. Spiffy hat, leather coat, boots: the whole nine. No brogues and waistcoat for this place. Crowley’s yellow eyes blow wide behind his dark lenses.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says slowly, delicately. Like he’s afraid Crowley is going to bolt. “It’s been a long time, my dear.”

“Don’t you start!” Crowley shouts, suddenly incensed, “You come in here with your ‘oh pish-posh’, ‘oh my dear’, ‘everything is tickety-boo’, like I’d have forgotten. Like I’m stupid.” He picks up his tray of shot glasses and takes them behind the bar, stomping the whole way. 

“Crowley, you must know I’ve been looking for you,” Aziraphale says as Crowley throws down the tray, breaking over half of the glasses with the impact. 

“Yeah, and what is it this time? A blessing in Uppsala? Jaunt down to help the missionaries over in Mexico? You really think I’d even consider helping you with anything right now.”

Crowley whips his glasses off and stares at the angel through acid-yellow eyes; eyes full of hurt and anger.

“I trusted you, Aziraphale. I thought what we had- I thought we were-” he gestures wildly from behind the bar as his face falls, “I don’t even know what I think anymore. At the very least I thought we were friends.”

“Crowley, I never meant anything untoward,” Aziraphale says, wringing his hands together, “I was simply frightened is all.”

“Frightened? Yeah, sure, sounds about right,” Crowley says as he takes a bottle of whiskey down off a shelf, letting the biting edge of sarcasm get his point across for him

“I’ll freely admit I never should have acted as though you mean nothing to me,” Aziraphale says desperately, walking over to the bar and leaning on the bar top.

“Bit late now, innit?” Crowley says, taking a long swig out of the bottle, “Cat’s already out of the bag!”

“I searched for you! For years,” Aziraphale shouts; Crowley can’t help but notice the pink rising in his face, “for decades, you stupid serpent!” 

“Stopped though, didn’t you, Angel?”  _ Stopped and left me here in this satanforsaken place, _ he thinks but doesn’t say. He has three decades worth of additional bitterness simmering under the surface, just waiting to spill over. “What happened, finally decided you didn’t need to get in the last word after all?”

“I wanted to apologize but you’d never let me get close enough!” Aziraphale is doing that thing he always does when he gets worked up. Stomping about, voice pitching higher than necessary. Crowley shouldn’t find it endearing, but he does all the same.

“Oh sure, pin this on me then why don’t you.” Crowley knows as soon as they leave his mouth that those words are the wrong thing to say. This would be dangerous territory soon; territory where they might actually talk about things and not just dance around them.

“You kept running, you had to have known I was looking for you but you  _ kept running _ ,” Aziraphale says, voice little more than a whisper. “I’ve been trying to give you space, I thought that’s what you wanted. What else was I supposed to think?”

Crowley looks up from his whiskey bottle and really  _ looks _ at his old friend for the first time since he walked into the bar. He’s disheveled in a way that Crowley would never expect, clearly exhausted, and now with tears brimming in those bright blue eyes.

Always the eyes, one might think he’d learn eventually: Don’t look into his eyes, maybe it won’t affect you this way. But there’s nothing to be done about it. Crowley has a weakness; a soft spot for one stuffy, uptight angel.

“But you’re here now,” Crowley says, lowering his voice, “so what’s changed?”

“I assume you’ve heard of the bit of a dust-up getting started over in Germany again?”

“Hard not to.” Crowley takes a couple of the shot glasses out and pours one for each of them. “Even way out here.”

“They’re trying to find the Ark,” Aziraphale sighs loudly and throws his shot back, wincing at the burn, “the Ark of the Covenant.”

“They’re  _ what _ .” Crowley stills his own glass at his lips.

“Hitler’s become a bit obsessed with occult and ethereal objects…thinks they’ll bring him untold power,” Aziraphale explains as he rubs his temples. Their corporations as a rule don’t get headaches, but sometimes they were a bit too human and forgot about this.

“Untold power, that’s a bloody understatement, innit?” Crowley asks, finally polishing off his own glass of whiskey, “We were there Aziraphale. You’re the one who sealed the bloody thing.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he says, exasperated, “But now I have to find it first, and thanks to the wards we put on it-”

“ _ You  _ put on it!”

“Yes, whatever, the wards that are on it, however you want to phrase it doesn’t  _ matter _ because they are  _ looking for it. _ ”

“So?” Crowley asks, still not seeing what all of this has to do with him in the first place. “Religious relic imbued with the power of God Herself shouldn’t be too hard for you to find.”

“That’s the  _ problem _ , Crowley. The seals we put on it...I can’t sense it’s location, haven’t been able to for centuries.”

“Ah, right.” Crowley stares into the bottom of his shot glass, watches the firelight flicker in it. Not that surprising for the demonic wards to muffle the signal, even with the angelic wards in place alongside them. Cancel each other out, same as always. 

Aziraphale sits across from him with his head in his hand, looking more exhausted than Crowley has seen him in centuries. Crowley turns his shot glass over, tapping it on the bar top. He’s always been weak where Aziraphale is concerned.

“Been doing this a while, huh Angel?” Crowley thinks back on some of the stories he’d heard after Aziraphale stopped chasing him; he had his own channels to keep tabs on the featherbrain after all, and they still updated him regularly. “I’ve heard the rumors. The Voynich manuscript a few years back, that business at Stonehenge before that? Peru a few months ago. You’ve been busy, haven’t you? Why do you need my help?”

“Do you remember, when we were in Egypt,” Aziraphale watches the demon pour him another shot and drinks it gratefully, “The pharaohs trusted you for centuries, I know you kept mementos. You always keep mementos.”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.” Crowley says, crossing his arms and leaning against the back counter, “The pharaohs were insufferable old gits at the best of times, maybe I don’t want to remember them.”

“Look, all I need is a staff headpiece, it’s about this big,” Aziraphale makes a small circle out of his hands, “red crystal a bit off center, supposed to be the sun. That’s all I need.”

“That’s all, is it?” Crowley asks, arching an eyebrow. An eyebrow that effectively says  _ what’s in this for me? _

“Yes, and then…” Aziraphale sighs heavily, shoulders sinking, “And then I’ll leave you alone again, for however long you want.”

“Won’t go chasing me halfway ‘round the world, then?” Crowley searches Aziraphale’s face for…well, for what he wasn’t really sure. 

“Not if you don’t want me to,” the angel says quietly, “you have my word.”

“I’ve had your word before,  _ Angel _ ,” Crowley hisses, pouring as much malice into the familiar moniker as he can, “and you said we were in things together. The Arrangement. What happened to that?”

“I meant it, you know. I never intended to lose you,” his eyes stay trained on the grimy bar floor.

“Still the same bastard,” Crowley shakes his head, unable to hide the twinge of fondness in his voice, “Come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Aziraphale looks up, confused, as Crowley makes his way back around the bar, “why?”

“Because I said so,” Crowley lifts him by the shoulder and starts towards the door, “It’s about time I called some of the shots where you’re concerned.”

“Fine,” Aziraphale says, wrenching his shoulder out of Crowley’s grip and brushing off his brown leather jacket, “I trust you.”

“You’re an idiot,” Crowley says with a half-cocked smile.

“So I’ve been told,” Aziraphale says sadly as he steps out into the snow, “so I’ve been told.”

Crowley watches the angel’s retreating back for a few moments, leaning against the door jamb, before going back inside. A snap of his fingers and an old rough-hewn box materializes on the table.

The box is almost as old as the demon himself, and filled with many of the trinkets he’s kept over the years. Some could be mistaken for junk - a couple of oyster shells, a discarded white feather, a dried apple core. Others might garner a second look - an original copy of Hamlet, an interesting array of sunglasses, a rusty nail carefully wrapped in several layers of linen. Underneath all of these he finds what he’s looking for. A bronze disk with a red crystal, just slightly off center, on a long silver chain, given to him by Pharaoh himself.

“Bingo,” he says, much to himself. “All this time and this is what brings him back around to me, then.”

He turns the medallion over in his hands, finally hanging it on a hook behind the bar. “Of all the shitty hellholes in all the frosted mountain’s he’d just have to walk into mine, wouldn’t he,” Crowley says, darting his yellow eyes up to the ceiling, “you listening up there? Must be a great joke to you then, eh?”

The box pops out of existence with a thought and he replaces his sunglasses. He pours himself another shot of whiskey, debating the merits of sobering up but ultimately deciding against it.

From the shadows of the alley outside, a figure in a black hat watches intently.

\---

Aziraphale clutches his jacket tighter around himself as the wind picks up, blowing the snow flurries to and fro. All things considered, that had gone better than expected. 

But if that’s the case, why does he still feel so broken?

Really, what had he expected? Some nonsensical high romance like in his books? Did he think he’d go in and sweep Crowley off his feet and it’d all be a wash? That they could ride off into the sunset? Those kinds of things just don’t happen. Especially not to them.

Aziraphale trudges through the banked snowfall, his brain turning the night’s events over and over. Maybe things would be better tomorrow. He’ll go back to that silly bar first thing in the morning and everything will be fine.

Things would always be fine with Crowley eventually.

His mindless trudging leads him not to the inn he’s staying at, but right back to the bar.

“Oh, now this is ridiculous,” he mutters to himself, “pull yourself together.”

Aziraphale starts to leave, determined to go back to the inn. He wants to get himself together and just come back in the morning; to try to forget how stubborn, ridiculous, and ineffably endearingly stupid Crowley could be. He stops when he hears voices coming from inside the bar. 

Aziraphale turns back to the establishment of ill repute and creeps in closer to the boarded up windows. Some Germans, from the sound of it. He takes a quick glance upward, a particular nervous tick he hasn’t quite managed to shake yet, and listens in.

“What do you want?” he hears Crowley’s voice say as he tries to get a better look through the thin gap in the wood at whoever might be there.

Four men; two of them locals and two clearly not, stand surrounding Crowley. One, dressed in a very smart black suit, is doing all of the talking. Aziraphale doesn’t like the look of him. Reminds him a bit too much of his superiors upstairs. Of the crowding tactics and the condescending language favored by Her alleged “favorite” amongst the archangels.

“The same thing your friend, Dr. Fell, wanted,” the man in black says through a thick German accent, with a voice that sounds like he’s missing whatever it is that connects a human’s mouth with their nose. He’s advancing towards Crowley in a manner that was supposed to come across as menacing, “Surely he told you there would be other interested parties?”

Crowley keeps his eyes trained on the man in the suit as he takes out a cigarette and lights it, “Must’ve slipped his mind.”

“The man is, heh, notorious, isn’t he?” the man in black asks, stepping even closer, as Crowley stifles a snort, “I hope, for your sake, Dr. Fell has not yet acquired it.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow over his dark glasses, “Why, what are you willing to offer for it?”

“Oh, quite everything I assure you, my friend,” the man says. “Everything important, anyway.”

Crowley takes a long drag and blows the smoke out directly into the man’s face.

“Right then,” he says with a smirk before shrugging with indifference and turning to the bar, “well I don’t have it. But…I can give you the next best thing- I know where it is. I’m sure we could come to some kind of deal?”

As soon as Crowley rounded the corner of the bar, he’s boxed in by one of the man in black’s thugs. Crowley turns towards him, looking almost offended. Aziraphale takes the opportunity to quietly sneak around to the doorway.

“What seems to be the trouble, fellas? Can I get any of you a drink?” he says, falling back on his carefully crafted cool façade.

The man in black stokes the fire, “Your fire is dying, jungchen. Why don’t you tell me where the piece is right now, and then we’ll be on our way.”

“Hey now, listen, I don’t know what kind of people you’re used to dealing with, but I can guarantee you that they aren’t anything like me,” Crowley shouts as he points an angry finger in the man’s direction. “Nobody, and I do mean nobody, tells me what to do in my place.”

The large man behind the bar pounces, grabbing Crowley’s arms and locking them behind his back. He drags Crowley out from behind the bar as the other two laugh. The man in black takes the now searing hot poker out of the fire and advances on Crowley.

“Fellas, really, weren’t we just having a civil conversation?” Crowley stammers out. “ I can still tell you what you want to know, no need for all this.”

“Are you always this insufferable?” the man in black asks, by now close enough that Crowley can feel the heat radiating off the poker. “The time for talk is past. I already know you’ll tell me everything I need to know.”

A loud crack thunders through the bar as the German yelps; the poker flying across the room and tangling in curtains, setting them alight instantly.

“Let him go!” Aziraphale shouts.

Gunfire erupts through the bar as everyone jumps for cover, knocking over tables and spilling booze onto the ground. Aziraphale, still pinned in the door frame, draws his gun.

“Oh, I hate these infernal contraptions!” the angel shouts as he shoots at the first of the thugs, his aim less than perfect. 5

The man fires back with his rifle, bullets ricocheting off the stone of the doorway.

Aziraphale sees the fire jump from the curtains, lighting a pile of firewood against the wall. With a snap of his fingers, the logs start rolling – right into the pool of alcohol surrounding the thug’s upended table. He screams as the arm of his jacket catches fire, and Aziraphale steadies his aim.

Suddenly there is a loud thud from the bar. Crowley is holding a broken table leg, the German thug laid out at his feet. Crowley is shouting but Aziraphale can’t tell what the hell he’s trying to say. 

Before Aziraphale can figure it out, the third henchman's two strong hands grab him and throw him towards the bar, pinning him down as he struggles.

“Need a hand?” Crowley asks, ducking back behind the bar.

“Whiskey?” Aziraphale wheezes.

Crowley shrugs and passes him a bottle, which Aziraphale then smashes over the goons’ head, knocking him out cold.

He barely registers the man in black running out the door before a sharp right hook punches the air out of him. Apparently the first wanker had managed to put his arm out.

“Oh seriously,” Aziraphale can feel blood running down his face. He takes up a defensive stance.

The man screeches at him, a loud guttural noise.

“Fine then,” the angel says, steeling himself, “we’ll see what you’ve got.”

Before either can throw a punch, a shot rings out. The thug sinks to his knees, blood oozing out of his mouth. Crowley is behind him, finger still on the trigger, gun still pointed out in front of him. Silence falls over the bar, the only sound remaining the crackling of the fire, leaping all around them from one surface to the next.

They just stare at each other for a moment, both of them grimy and covered in sweat and blood, breathing heavily.

The moment is thick and hazy, neither of them wanting to break eye contact but neither of them knowing what to say. Not even knowing where to start.

“Alright there, Angel?” Crowley asks, lowering the gun and letting it clatter to the floor. Aziraphale tries not to notice the worry in Crowley’s face as his eyes dart to the blood on his forehead. Crowley’s sunglasses have long since disappeared and Aziraphale is trying very hard not to read into the emotion in the demon’s yellow eyes.

“Alright, I’ve had worse,” Aziraphale says, wiping the blood from his forehead, healing it with a quick miracle, “You?”

Crowley opens his mouth to reply but before he can one of the rafters comes crashing down.

“We should get out of here,” Crowley grabs the medallion from its hook before vaulting over the bar and heading for the door. “Whole damn place is gonna come down!”

They stumble out of the bar just in time to see the roof cave in; the howling wind outside a stark contrast to the previous silence.

“Well, Angel, let it never be said you don’t know how to show a demon a good time,” Crowley says, watching his bar burn to the ground, laughing all the while.

“Really?” Aziraphale says with both hands on his knees attempting to catch his breath, “Is that what you’d call that? You’re really something.”

“You think so?” Crowley says with a smirk, “Better hope you’re up for it, then.”

“Up for what?”

“Oh, this is all way too good to pass up, you’re in for much more than you bargained for,” Crowley holds up the medallion by the chain, grinning like a madman. “This what you needed?”

“Yes! You had it the whole time, you fiend, I knew it!” Aziraphale shouts, reaching for it.

“Ah ah ah,” Crowley says, pulling it out of the angel’s reach and wagging his finger, “No, I think I need to come along. As of right now, Angel, I’m your goddamn partner.”

\---

1 “Academic peers” being a very loose term for the other professors and academics he associates with at Oxford. Frankly he finds them all uptight and insufferable. And their opinions on women are horrific at best.

2 Of course one of the benefits of the celestial mind is the almost photographic memory. He might as well have the books with him right now, imprinted on his mind as they are.

3 After all, procuring a pencil would be considered a “frivolous miracle” and he certainly wasn’t performing any of those these days.

4 This wouldn’t be the first nor the last time Aziraphale dealt with strange cults mutilating bodies and sacrificing people to old gods, but those were stories for another time.

5 Heaven, as a rule, considers guns good as long as they can lend weight to a moral argument. Aziraphale has never cared for the things; too loud for his taste.

  
  



	2. A Bad Feeling About This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Ark, if it is there, at Tanis…then it is something man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it.”
> 
> Aziraphale’s thoughts turn to the past, to his time spent with Moses among his people, after those dreadful plagues. The pure celestial energy that had released when Moses broke the tablets in anger: the idolaters hadn’t stood a chance. That power was not meant for mortal eyes or mortal uses. It had very nearly destroyed Crowley- and it would have if Aziraphale hadn’t been there. Afterwards they had helped Moses seal the broken pieces into the Ark.
> 
> Fear washes over Aziraphale like the sea coming back together. “I know Sallah, believe me I know.”

**Cairo, Egypt. 1936**

The flight from Nepal was awkward to say the least. Aziraphale was struggling with his thoughts; so many things he could say. That he _wanted_ to say. All of them boiling down to the barest of apologies before they could force their way out of his mouth. Based on how much Crowley was fidgeting in his seat, he was pretty sure they were in similar boats in this situation.

It was strange to consider. They had gone longer without speaking. Whole millennia in a couple of instances. This time felt different. This time felt like there was a line drawn in the sand, waiting for one of them to cross it. Crowley had always been an unstoppable force; Aziraphale, in this case, was the immovable object. Stuck in a stalemate of little more than pride.

Aziraphale risks a glance in Crowley’s direction, finds ochre eyes fixed on his own. He smiles nervously, darting his eyes back away and worrying at the ring on his little finger. Aziraphale wonders when exactly Crowley had started making him this particular brand of anxious. 

“How is it that I tempted humans into knowledge, and _you_ ended up a professor?” Crowley says clearing his throat, breaking the silence, “What did your lot have to say about that?”

“Nothing at all, actually. Seems they’re still a bit behind on paperwork from the Great War, they’ve left me alone for several decades now.” Aziraphale relaxes a bit, letting the tension ease out of his shoulders.

“Nice then, innit?” Crowley was doing his best to use the airplane seat in the most incorrect way possible, “Do what you want, they just bugger off. Haven’t heard from my lot in a while either, figured it was the geography. They’re probably just as swamped as yours though.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Aziraphale says, smiling kindly at a stewardess who hands him a package of peanuts, “Tell me more about Nepal, how on earth did you end up somewhere so dreadfully cold?”

“Dunno, really,” Crowley says, grinning from ear to ear, “beacon of bad ideas and dangerous people, seemed a good idea at the time, I guess.”

 _Maybe this isn’t such a lost cause_ , Aziraphale thinks to himself as he feels the frozen decades between them start to melt, _maybe we can at least get back to where we were_.

A few hours later, stepping off of the airplane and onto the tarmac in Cairo, Aziraphale steals a glance at Crowley. He’s stretching his arms high over his head, as though reaching up to touch the sun. Probably hadn’t seen good sunlight in years. It would be no surprise to Aziraphale to see some of Crowley’s more snake-like tendencies come out here, where the air is warm and dry.6 He immediately averts his gaze when Crowley’s shirt rides up just a bit too high. Sure enough, there are the beginning of scales creeping up his spine.

Aziraphale swallows hard and bids his heart to quit pounding as Crowley turns back to him with a smile. It’s one of pure unbridled happiness tinged with just a bit of mischief. Aziraphale rolls his eyes, feigning annoyance in the face of his own affections, and scans the area. Soon enough he notices a short man in a smart cream suit hurrying towards them.

“Ezra, my old friend! Welcome! Welcome to Cairo; city of the living! Paradise on Earth,” Sallah pulls Aziraphale into a friendly hug, practically lifting him off the ground.

Aziraphale was always happy to see a friendly face, especially one of his oldest human friends. He and Sallah had worked together in the early twenties, and there was no one he could count on more for this.

“It’s good to see you again, my friend,” Aziraphale says with a wide smile, “And how are Fayah and the kids? I believe in our last correspondence you said there were eight of them now?”

“Nine as it were! It’s been a while since I’ve written,” Sallah looks over to Crowley, a bit perplexed, “And who is your friend here?”

Crowley extends a hand, “Crowley, I’m an...associate of Dr. Fell’s.” Crowley shoots a rather pointed look in Aziraphale’s direction, raising his eyebrow, before Sallah pulls him into a bone-breaking hug. Aziraphale suppresses a laugh at Crowley’s clear discomfort before Sallah lets him go.

“Any friend of Ezra’s is a friend of mine, indeed,” he says with a laugh that shakes through his whole body, “Come, you are both welcome in our home! We will discuss Tanis there.”

Sallah hurries ahead of them to his truck and Aziraphale turns to Crowley.

“What?” Aziraphale asks, not meeting Crowley’s gaze.

“ _Ezra?_ ” the demon asks, grinning like a madman. “Really?”

Aziraphale huffs indignantly, “What’s wrong with my alias?”

“Nothing,” Crowley says, face softening, “suits you, sort of.”

Aziraphale knows the tips of his ears must be turning pink, but he ignores it. “Oh, well, thank you.” His eyes dart away from Crowley’s face, unable to reconcile the softness of that smile with the warmth in his chest. Aziraphale tries his best not to look at him as they clamber into the truck.

The trip to Sallah’s home is uneventful, but Aziraphale holds onto his worries. The strange German man from the bar had escaped, and though Aziraphale would love to think that was the last of it, he’s sure their troubles aren’t over.

Given his time here on Earth though, was that really so out of the ordinary? He and Crowley both had seen so much in their millennia of life, been party to so many wars and acts of espionage. Of kings and countries, warlords and barbarians, even of God and Lucifer themselves. This would be just another drop in that bucket.

Aziraphale looks out the window, keeping a watch on surroundings as they drive into Cairo proper. He can tell Crowley is on edge, too. They’ve been in situations like this before, but independently of each other. Usually Crowley would be the one sweeping in at the end and saving him. He didn’t need Crowley to save him now, he’d been doing this for years at this point.

They arrive at Sallah’s home and all nine of his kids rush out to greet them. Aziraphale isn’t the least bit surprised when they all soon latch onto Crowley, shouting about one thing or another. They drag him up the staircase by his hands and his shirt while he shouts at Aziraphale for help, but Aziraphale just laughs at him. Crowley has always been better with kids than he would want to let on, but kids can always tell when they find a kindred spirit.

They drag Crowley up a staircase and to the outdoor patio. Aziraphale and Sallah follow just in time to see the children cluster around a table under the rooftop pergola. Fayah follows, carrying a tray loaded with fresh fruit and a pitcher. She shakes her head at the children, who are clustered around a monkey who is making an absolute spectacle of itself while the children shriek in delight.

“Children, children! Why do you forget yourselves?” Fayah says, waving the children away from the table as she places the tray there, “And who brought this animal here?”

The monkey flails about and crashes into the tray, spilling the fruit onto the table and the floor.

“Oh, isn’t he a cute little fella,” Crowley says sarcastically. The monkey stares at him for a beat before jumping to his shoulder and grabbing onto his hair, “Oy! Bugger off!”

The children laugh as Crowley tries in vain to get the literal monkey off his back. Aziraphale can’t help but smile.

“Oh, he likes you,” Fayah says, softening immediately and clasping her hands together, “then he shall be welcome in our house!”

“Oh, no, no, no, really, that’s not necessary, you really don’t have to- ARGH!” Crowley yelps as the monkey pulls on his hair again, “Right little bastard, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale leans against one of the pergola posts, watching the events unfold. Smiling brightly and not caring who sees him. He’s missed Crowley terribly. Things were dull without Crowley around to cause trouble or whisk him off to restaurants or the theater. The monkey chitters and the children laugh, absconding with Crowley once again. As they leave, Crowley looks over his shoulder, beaming.

It’s a very particular smile of Crowley’s, one that holds more fond memories than Aziraphale might care to admit. He can’t help but remember things like successful plays that aren’t one of the funny ones; or crepes in the middle of a revolution. If one were to press him about it, he might say things almost feel like they are falling into place right where they should be.

He laughs and takes a seat at the table across from Sallah.

“I knew they’d hire you, of course,” Aziraphale says as Sallah poured them both a drink, “You’ve always been the best digger in Egypt.”

“My services are entirely inconsequential to them. They’ve hired or shanghaied every digger in Cairo at this point,” Sallah takes a long drink and shakes his head, “They hire only strong backs and they pay pennies for them. It’s as if the pharaohs had returned…”

Sallah trails off staring into the distance and Aziraphale is struck. He remembers the days of the pharaohs, the back-breaking work Moses’ people were charged with. The sooner they found the Ark, the sooner these Nazis would have nothing to dig for. “And have they found the map room yet?”

“Yes, three days ago,” Sallah nods, “broke through myself.”

“Excellent,” Aziraphale says, “That’s half the problem solved at least.” The less subterfuge, the better. Aziraphale knows that Crowley had a penchant for it, but Aziraphale just doesn’t think he’ll be able to stomach it this time around.

“I can say this of them,” Sallah says with a chuckle, “they have not one brain among them, save for the Frenchman.”

“Yes, René Belloq, I was told he’d be involved,” Aziraphale furrows his brow, “dreadful fellow with his silly obsessions.”

“The Germans certainly don’t seem to mind; one might even think they find it endearing.”

“I highly doubt Nazis are capable of finding anything endearing, my old friend.”

“Maybe not, but they do have a great advantage over us,” Sallah leans in close and lowers his voice, “they’re very near to discovering the Well of Souls.”

“I’m afraid they won’t get far without this,” Aziraphale takes the medallion out of his pocket and watches it glint in the sunlight before handing it to his friend. “Who could tell us about these markings? I’m afraid my grasp on the ancient languages is a bit rusty.” Languages moved so far and so fast it had always been a bit difficult for Aziraphale to keep up, even in the modern sense.

Sallah considers it for a moment, turning it over and over in his hands. “Perhaps I know a man who can help us, I’ll speak to him at once.” He pauses as a distant look crosses his face, “But, Ezra, there is something that troubles me.”

“What is it?”

“The Ark, if it is there, at Tanis…then it is something man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it.”

Aziraphale’s thoughts turn to the past, to his time spent with Moses among his people, after those dreadful plagues. The pure celestial energy that had released when Moses broke the tablets in anger: the idolaters hadn’t stood a chance. That power was not meant for mortal eyes or mortal uses. It had very nearly destroyed Crowley- and it would have if Aziraphale hadn’t been there. Afterwards they had helped Moses seal the broken pieces into the Ark.

Fear washes over Aziraphale like the sea coming back together. “I know Sallah, believe me I know.”

\---

**Cairo Marketplace, later that day**

Crowley had needled Aziraphale into taking a spin with him around the marketplace. It had been centuries since Crowley had been in Egypt, and he wanted to see how much had changed. The silly monkey is still tagging along, perched on Crowley’s shoulder and gripping his hair. It’s a bit odd; animals don’t usually take to him. Something to do with the whole ‘snake’ thing. Crowley had decided he didn’t mind the little fellow that much.

“Did you really need to bring that _thing_ with you, Crowley?” Aziraphale says with more than a little exasperation, as the monkey pelts him with pistachio shells. The creature had snagged them from a market stall a ways back. Quite an agent of chaos this monkey was shaping up to be; might have to give him a job.

“I’m surprised at you, Angel,” Crowley says, feigning a shocked gasp and stroking the monkey’s fur, “aren’t angels supposed to love all of God’s creatures?”

“Broadly,” Aziraphale says, wincing as another shell hits right between his eyes, “I don’t think it should extend to when they’re this obnoxious.”

“Ah, come on, Angel!” Crowley says, gathering up the monkey from his shoulder and practically cooing at it, “The fellow’s like a perfect mix of us; he even looks like you!”

Aziraphale huffs, “Well obviously he has your brains then.” For his trouble he is rewarded with another shell lobbed in his direction while the monkey shrieks.

“Course he does; smart little thing, this one!” Crowley says with a laugh as they stop at yet another merchant stall. The slow meandering pace they set is comforting to him; and farbeit for him to begrudge Aziraphale stopping at every single stand to bless everyone’s days and try all of the food that Cairo has to offer him. If there’s one thing in this world Crowley has always been good at, it’s indulging Aziraphale. If he gets to grate on the angel’s nerves with the help of his simian friend, well, that’s just a bonus.

Aziraphale shoots him a sidelong glance just as the monkey jumps from his shoulders and darts down an alleyway.

“Hey, where’s he going?”

“Come on, he’ll turn back up,” Aziraphale holds out a small paper bag to him, “have a date.”

Crowley turns to him only to have a small fruit shoved into his face. “What was that?”

“It’s a date,” Aziraphale says, smiling, “You eat them! They’re really quite delightful.”

“I _know_ what a date is, Aziraphale, didn’t hear you the first time,” Crowley says, stealing the hat off of Aziraphale’s head just to see the look of annoyance flash across his features. “Why are you wearing this nonsense anyway? Makes you look like one of those silly fellows out west in the States.”

“Would you give that back, I happen to like it,” Aziraphale says to no avail as Crowley puts it on his own head, “And besides it’s not a cowboy hat; I happen to think it’s rather fetching.”

“As if you would know fetching if it were staring you in the face, you still wear _tartan_.” Crowley says as Aziraphale glares at him. Aziraphale snatches his hat back from off Crowley’s head, but his smile is fond all the same. Crowley just shrugs and grins at him as they continue walking, falling back into normal patterns and sharing the bag of dates.

Their conversation meanders along with them as they make their way through the market. They don’t notice the shadowy figure with an eyepatch watching them from the back-alley; a very familiar monkey perched on his shoulder. 7

“I’m just saying, Angel,” Crowley says as they approached a pottery stall, “I’d have paid actual real money to see you teaching a class. Or fighting cannibals in India. Can’t believe I missed all of that.”

“You wouldn’t have had to if you’d just stopped being such a stubborn serpent,” Aziraphale says as he looks over the vases and urns, admiring the colors. Deep blues and bright reds, similar to the wares of centuries past.

“Oh, come on,” Crowley says with a grin, “You wouldn’t have me any other way, would you?”

The silence that hangs after this remark makes him question his words. Bit too close to revealing things that should stay hidden; things he was sure Aziraphale wasn’t ready to hear.

Crowley loves Aziraphale. Has for a blasted long time, at that. 8 Being apart from him, actively running away from him, had stung. But there had been something in Aziraphale’s eyes that day in St. James’s Park; something pleading. Something reflected in his friend that Crowley had been trying to squash down deep inside of himself for centuries. 

He couldn’t dare hope for that.

Aziraphale couldn’t love him that way. He’s an angel; he loves all things inherently. Part of the job description. Crowley has often thought that _might_ extend to him, but surely Aziraphale could never feel this all-encompassing, persistent, absolutely torturous yearning. This need to protect and to covet and to keep. It’s as maddening as it is useless. Crowley had hoped that Nepal would freeze it out of him, but as soon as Aziraphale had appeared in that doorway it rushed back with reckless abandon. Emotions barging in like they owned the damn place, and very quickly reminding him that someone specific has owned the space in his heart for a very long time.

Crowley is startled from his thoughts by a hand on his arm and immediately dropped back into reality.

“Crowley, did you hear me?” Aziraphale asks, concern painting his face.

“Sorry, lost myself a bit there, what was it?”

“I said,” Aziraphale huffs, “that I did quite miss you terribly these past decades.”

Crowley freezes up entirely. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Words try to bubble up inside of him ( _I missed you, too. You have no idea. I bloody love you, you stupid featherbrain._ ), but all that comes out is a strangled stammer.

“What I mean is...” Aziraphale averts his gaze upwards while wringing his hands together, the old nervous tick that Crowley knows so well, “it has been dreadfully boring without you around, and more than a bit lonely.”

Aziraphale is avoiding looking Crowley directly in the face. It feels quite a bit like a crossroad; a turning point with two options, one infinitely more important and wanted than the other. Slowly, he takes off his sunglasses, allowing himself to be vulnerable just this once.

“Hey, Angel, look at me,” Crowley says, laying a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder and trying desperately not to notice the fear and uncertainty in his eyes, “I’m sorry, ok? I shouldn’t have run quite so hard and I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”

“Oh, oh thank you,” Aziraphale perks up immediately, smiling brightly at Crowley. Aziraphale has a lot of smiles at his disposal and Crowley has already mentally catalogued all of them, but this is one he so rarely sees. The one of pure joy that makes Aziraphale’s eyes sparkle. “I was worried, that when this is all over, you might-” the angel trails off and his eyes grow wide.

“Oh, bugger,” Aziraphale curses and Crowley barely has time to process that fact before he finds himself pushed rather unceremoniously to the ground.

\---

No time to think, just to act. Aziraphale pushes Crowley to the ground just in time to miss the first swing of a sword. He gathers himself quickly, connecting to the thug’s jaw with a right hook. 9 Crowley, quick as ever, sticks his leg out to trip a second one as Aziraphale lands another strike on the third.

“You didn’t have to push me into the dirt, Angel!” Crowley shouts at him as he stands. Aziraphale grabs him by the arm and starts running.

“No time for that now, I’m afraid!”

They put some distance between themselves and the thugs, but Aziraphale can still hear them coming behind them. They wind through the alleyways and streets, ducking through doorways and jumping through crowds until they come to a dead end. Right or left? One or the other; or else stay and get caught.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Crowley says, doubled over and catching his breath, “That’s a mean right hook for an angel.”

“It’s no good,” Aziraphale says as he looks around for an escape route, “we’ll have to split up!”

“When has that _ever_ been a good idea?”

“Well it’s the only idea I’ve got,” he says, “so if you have any better ones now would be the time!”

Crowley opens and closes his mouth a few times, gesticulating with his hands but coming up with no useful input.

“That’s what I thought,” Aziraphale says, “Now run!”

He takes the path to the left as Crowley heads to the right. Aziraphale hopes against all hope that they’ll follow him and not Crowley. Not that Crowley can’t take care of himself, but the last thing this city needs is a 60 foot long black snake thrashing about in the town square.

Never in all of his centuries on Earth has Aziraphale ever wished quite so hard that humans would just _bugger off_. He can’t use miracles here, too many witnesses. Would just cause more chaos. So he keeps running, soldier’s instinct for preservation taking over. Ducking through archways along cobbled paths; a circular route meant to throw off the ones trailing him.

He emerges into a large square, teeming with shoppers and vendors. He takes a moment to catch his breath, and the crowd parts around him. A man in a black turban stares him down, scimitar gleaming in the blazing afternoon sun.

The man screeches like a banshee as he spins the scimitar around and around, a display clearly meant to intimidate. Aziraphale’s patience has worn about as thin as he can handle.

“Oh, really now, this is getting quite tedious,” Aziraphale says through shaky breaths, following the arc of the scimitar with his eyes, its wielder still shouting like a moron the whole time. 

It is at this moment Aziraphale decides he has had quite enough. “I do apologize, but I really do not have time for this,” he says, snapping his fingers in a downward motion.

The assassin’s sword clatters to the ground as he disappears with a pop. Where he ends up, no one can really say. 10

Aziraphale does not have long to focus on his victory. A familiar voice finds his ears, screeching and cursing and calling his name.

“ANGEL! AZIRAPHALE!”

Two of the bandits run past him through the square, carrying a large rattan basket, with a shrieking demon trapped inside.

“Oh _good lord_ ,” Aziraphale says as he starts to chase after them. He’s already drafting his resignation letter in his head. This whole situation is becoming much more than he anticipated, and he has a very bad feeling about all this.

\---

“Sod it this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever…” Crowley mutters under his breath as he turns around, intending to catch back up to Aziraphale. Splitting up? Seriously?

He’s stopped by a fist to his face, knocking him into a nearby stall.

As he scrambles back upright he finds himself face to face with a thin man with horrible teeth, sneering and laughing at him. He has his fists up, ready for a fight.

Crowley takes a quick glance around him and notices a cast-iron frying pan hanging from the stall. He grabs it and brandishes it towards the thug.

“Hey, get back, I know how to use this thing!” Crowley yells with all of the confidence he can muster; despite the fact that he most certainly does not know how to use a frying pan.

The man laughs louder and pulls a large, thin knife from his robes.

“Well, alright then,” Crowley says before running the other direction, creating distance between them and ducking into an open doorway. He peers out from the frame, waiting for the thug to pass. A woman sat across from him at another booth points wildly towards the doorway.

“Oi! Hey! Don’t do that!” Crowley shouts at her as he sees the thug round the corner. He ducks back into the doorframe, waiting.

The man steps foot lightly into the doorway and is swiftly met with a cast-iron pan to the face. He falls backward, knocked out cold.

Crowley pulls the body into the building before continuing his search for Aziraphale. As he ducks between alleys, he notices a pile of large rattan baskets. He can hear the shouts and jeers of the hired guns looking for him and the angel, and thinks it might be best to hide for just a bit. 

He jumps inside one of the baskets and halts his corporation to a standstill — no movement, no breathing, no heartbeat — as he listens to them run past. He sighs in relief and moves to push the lid back off. 

A screeching makes him jump; the same monkey from earlier has taken residence on top of the basket and is screeching as loud as it can every time he tries to move.

“Oy, come off it!” Crowley shouts, shaking the lid trying to knock the monkey off. “You’ll get me spotted you stupid little gremlin.”

He doesn’t see the thugs double back. Nor does he see the man in the smart grey suit come out of one of the nearby doorways, a man with an eyepatch at his side. The next thing Crowley is aware of, he’s frozen in place by a powerful force that seems to have seized on the very atoms of his existence. 

“What in the Heaven,” he says as he struggles against whatever is holding him steady. There are precious few things in this world that can actually hold a demon hostage, and he’s mentally going over the list. Most of them, he’s found and stored somewhere safe. Somewhere no one but him can get to them. There’s only one that he knows of that has eluded him.

The lid is lifted and he feels a compulsion to stand, so he does. He comes face to face with the man in the grey suit and the man with an eyepatch. Eyepatch looks ready to jump out of his skin.

“What issss it,” Crowley hisses. He allows his yellow pupils to take over and a ghosting of scales to creep up his neck. He makes a show of baring his fangs and scenting the air with his thin, forked tongue. “Sssssomething got you sssspooked?” Eyepatch scampers backwards, hiding behind Grey Suit.

“I have to hand it to you, my friend,” says Grey Suit to Eyepatch, “I didn’t believe you at first, but there is no mistaking. Snake eyes, very interesting. Most of the books say it's frogs or flies, haven't read much about demons with snake tendencies.”

Crowley curses internally. Somewhere along the line he’d lost his sunglasses entirely. He only has the one defining mark as a demon - leave it to chance there’s someone here who would recognize it, even if that someone only has one eye working.

“Hello, my friend,” Grey Suit says as he turns to him, “Perhaps you’ve heard of me, I’m René Belloq.” Crowley spits on his shoes. “Hmm, a bit touchy, aren’t you?”

“A bit, yeah,” Crowley says, voice taking on a deep echo, “Considering the smug grin on your face I’m assuming you’re the reason I can’t move. What is it? Devil’s trap, incantation bowls? Azira – uh – Dr. Fell said that you were a bit on the occult side so what very, very breakable thing did you use to trap me here?”

“Breakable?” Belloq says with a laugh, “Oh no, my friend, quite the opposite.” He passes the lid to Eyepatch, who takes out a piece of charcoal and starts drawing on the inside of it. Belloq holds up his fist, where he has a signet ring with a six-point star. Crowley recognizes it immediately. 

“The Seal of Solomon, where the Heaven did you get that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, demon.”

Eyepatch brings the lid back over, now emblazoned with a charcoal devil’s trap.

“Very nice, my friend,” Belloq says to him, making a downward motion with his hand, forcing Crowley to kneel back down in the basket. “A real live demon. They’ll have to take me seriously now. Once we get you back to Europe, we’ll dissect you and see what makes you tick.”

Belloq replaces the lid and calls out in Arabic. The next thing Crowley knows he is being lifted and carried through the marketplace. With no other way out, he screams for Aziraphale.

\---

Aziraphale gives chase immediately, fighting through the thick midday crowds around him. Whatever scrape Crowley has gotten himself into this time, he obviously can’t get himself out of it.

He chases them to another square and his heart stops. At least thirty, if not forty, rattan baskets being carried around by the locals. He feels panic starting to build, the blood rushing and pounding in his ears muffling all the noise around him. It’s too many to search through, but he has to try.

Aziraphale keeps running, yanking the baskets off people’s shoulders indiscriminately, shouting Crowley’s name the whole time. He finally hears him as the men carrying him round another corner onto a side street.

Aziraphale follows as fast as he can, jumping around the corner. He jumps back immediately as bullets pepper the ground around his feet, little puffs of sand coming up where they strike. That must be where they’ve taken Crowley, loaded him up into the back of a truck.

He reaches for his pistol, still not sure of his next move, and jumps back from the corner. The men in the truck slam on the gas, heading straight for him. He jumps out of the way and snaps his fingers as they careen past him, popping the right front tire. The truck swerves and ramps off an embankment, crashing onto its side.

Aziraphale watches the crash in slow motion, and he becomes painfully aware of three things in quick succession.

The first, that there is indeed a rattan basket in the back of the truck- he can see it just before the truck flips.

The second, the rest of the truck is filled to the brim with explosives. Big crates clearly marked.

The third, and worst of these, is that Crowley is about to be very thoroughly, violently, and completely discorporated.

Before he can reconcile these things and make a move to save Crowley, the truck explodes, the impact of the crash destabilizing the explosives inside and setting off a chain reaction that would put any Bonfire Night festivities to shame.

All Aziraphale can do now is watch the truck, and know his friend’s body burns with it.

\---

6 Crowley could usually keep his snakelike nature well under wraps, with the notable exception of his yellow eyes. Sometimes, though, moments of extreme distress or extreme relaxation could coax his scales into manifesting.

7 The shady man cut across a second alley and into a seedy bar, meeting up with some Germans in smart suits. Those men in smart suits in turn met up with some locals who brought along their swords and their guns. And thus, the chain was set into motion, and the shadowy figure returned to the market to continue watching.

8 “Let me tempt you…wait, no, that’s your job isn’t it?” A few oysters in Rome and Crowley’s life would never be the same.

9 One didn’t become a guardian of a gate of Eden without being able to fight should the need arise. Aziraphale was quite proud of his right hook, it had been his second best bet after his flaming sword, which could not be employed now as it had been misplaced some six millennia previous.

10 It is the human condition that things unexplainable, given enough time and chatter, will often work out an explanation of their own. That being said, if anyone were to ask what had happened in the following weeks, the general consensus would be that the fluffy British man had shot the swordsman dead right there in the square. As for the swordsman, he ended up on a quiet little beach in the Bahamas, where he was greeted warmly by the locals and had quite a splendid and lovely time.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! The [Seal of Solomon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Solomon) is an actual artifact! You can read about it here xD


	3. I've Got Nothing Better To Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally made it to Chapter 3! Only took, what, six months? xD Thank you to everyone who jumped over here to this new upload with me, and thank you to the new people finding this for the first time. I love all of you so much! <3

**_A Bar in Cairo, the name doesn’t matter._ **

Aziraphale has never been a fan of Scotch. Always more for a nice French red. He doesn’t like the particular burn that trails all the way down and lingers like it owns him, nor is he a fan of anything that can be described as “malty”. Most of them tend to, in Aziraphale’s admittedly limited experience, be more for smoke, peat, and pepper. Spicy and fiery.

It isn't a mystery to Aziraphale why they would be Crowley’s favorites.

This is how Aziraphale finds himself in a bar with a name he cannot pronounce drowning in a bottle of Talisker11. Definitely not his favorite, even among his least favorites, but he is drinking to Crowley.

This is a memorial. A eulogy, even. A toast to an old friend, even if there is no one to toast  _ with _ .

Aziraphale lost track of how much he’d drunk ages ago and is rather put out when he realizes the bottle is empty. Things aren’t fuzzy enough yet and that just won’t do.

“Same again, my good fellow,” he calls out to the bartender, who brings another bottle to Aziraphale on the balcony of the place. The view of the marketplace is nice, and Crowley would’ve liked it here. His little monkey friend is still hanging around, curled up on Aziraphale’s shoulders, one little hand fisted on his hat.

Of course, Crowley isn’t really  _ dead _ insofar as the human understanding of it. Only Holy Water can do that. No, Crowley has merely been discorporated. He’ll be back on Earth at some point. Hopefully.

In some of Crowley’s more drunken ramblings, he had confessed just how much he hated being in Hell. How horrible it was to be there for any more than five minutes at a time to give reports. Even then, it was a stretch.

Aziraphale isn’t really sure how Hell’s Department of Corporations works – nor Heaven’s for that matter. He and Crowley have always kept each other so firmly out of trouble neither has needed to apply for new bodies.

Could be months before Aziraphale sees Crowley again. Years. Centuries. There is no way to know.

And- in Aziraphale’s mind- it is all his fault. He had dragged Crowley along on this fool’s errand and now he’d been discorporated. Right when everything was starting to get back to normal.

He cracks the seal on the bottle and pours himself another glass, throwing it back quickly and trying to ignore that slow burn. What if he can’t recognize him? What if Crowley doesn’t remember him? What if Crowley  _ does _ remember him but can never forgive him for this mess?

“What do you think, little one?” he slurs at the monkey, who has no answers. Not that something as silly as ‘ability to talk’ has ever stopped him from having full conversations completely sober, much less three sheets to the wind. 12

“Not that I expect you to understand, but I lo-erm…You see, Crowley is very important to me,” he slurs at the monkey, swaying just a bit in his seat, “And when someone is gone you have to be sad it’s a perfectly  _ human _ thing to do.”

He sees two blurry grey blobs approaching him. Very nicely dressed gray blobs, with fancy hats, and even fancier guns. Aziraphale affects his best air of sobriety, despite having lost the ability to sober himself several bottles ago.

“‘Ello there gentlemen,” Aziraphale says, leaning his chin onto his fist. “How essactly can I help you?”

He’s dragged to his feet roughly and shoved down the stairs of the bar, down to the main part of the restaurant, full of people, mostly locals, it looks like. He’s ushered inside, stopped only momentarily by Nazi guards. A quick salute from the nicely dressed man (Aziraphale now realizes is only  _ one _ man, not two) and they are brought inside. Aziraphale is shoved roughly into a chair, still off kilter from the scotch and general sadness.

“The ever illustrious Dr. Fell.” A smug French voice to his left says. A smug French voice coming from a man in a too-expensive suit, with his own bottle of Scotch and a glass. Taking puffs from the hookah on the table. “Your reputation precedes you, of course, though I’m sure mine must as well.”

“Belloq,” Aziraphale says, with more than a hint of malice, the alcohol in his system keeping his words loose. “Were I not a gentleman I’d say I should kill you right now.”

Belloq looks around them performatively with his arms outstretched, “I must say, my friend, this is not a very private place for a murder.”

“Oh no, I don’t think they’ll care if we kill each other,” Aziraphale says, reaching out and taking the bottle of Scotch. “In fact I can guarantee that they won’t interfere in our business.” A minor miracle to turn the other way while he takes out the garbage probably wouldn’t be noticed by the Powers That Be. For Crowley’s sake, he’d really like to take that chance. He settles for tipping the bottle of scotch back and taking a long swig.

“I didn’t bring your friend into this business, Dr. Fell,” Belloq says, sipping from his own glass. Aziraphale fixes him with a glare. “Don’t be that way, we can at least behave like civilized people!”

Aziraphale scoffs, “Civilized, really? From you that is rich.”

“Your taste in friends, by the by, is abysmal at best,” Belloq says as though it’s a joke, only causing Aziraphale to seethe even more. “Though, I must say, this is an odd way to end things, isn’t it? After this long-standing game of cat and mouse, I almost regret it.” He fixes Aziraphale with a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes; like the whole thing is a game. “Where shall I find a new adversary so close to my own level?”

Aziraphale is taken aback. He barely knows Belloq, and the man is acting like they’re even in the same realm. Some two-bit occultist running around with Nazis, playing with things he doesn’t understand. Aziraphale finds himself suddenly very, very sober and very, very angry.

“Well, my dear fellow, I believe you may find suitable company in the local sewer.”

Belloq laughs, undeterred. “You know Dr. Fell, for all of your posturing we are very much alike. Archaeology is our religion. Our methods, our means to knowledge, they do not differ as much as you would like to pretend. Knowledge is what we seek. You can stay on your high horse, my friend, but it would only take a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.”

“Well that’s just uncalled for.” Aziraphale shakes his head; how could someone be so dense? Have things so completely backwards? 

“Really, you know how humanity is. Look at this—” Belloq holds up a tin pocket watch “—worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But if I take it and bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it will become priceless. So priceless that men will kill for it. Men like you and me.”

Aziraphale refrains from telling Belloq that he is not, in fact, a man. He also refrains from telling him that he would not, in fact, fight for a cheap pocket watch just because it spent a millennia buried in the sand. He settles for another swig from the bottle without breaking eye contact

“And your  _ Führer _ ? Is he not waiting to take possession of the Ark?” Aziraphale can feel the anger boiling inside himself, but also the resentment seething just under Belloq’s skin. 

Angels can sense many things besides just love. All of the virtues, of course, helps determine who to bless. But other things, after centuries of the Arrangement. The virtues run right alongside the vices. Humility can become Wrath when one gets resentful. Charity turns to Greed with a flick of the wrist, with a well placed whisper. Aziraphale is very good at his job as an angel; but if he wasn’t also good at Crowley’s, the Arrangement would never work.

Belloq knows that he’s a joke, he has no illusions on it. Knows the things whispered about him in the corners of academia that he wants to impress. “Wouldn’t want to keep your fearless leader waiting,” Aziraphale says, even keeled in a steely tone.

“He can have it when I’m finished with it!” Belloq shouts as he slams his fist on the table. He shakes his head and composes himself before continuing. “Dr. Fell, do you realize what the Ark is?” 

If only he knew. Knew that Aziraphale had been there. That he had felt the wrath from Moses as he broke the tablets and punished his people. Watched the calf idol melt in Moses’s hands, watched him force his people to drink the tainted water.

Belloq hadn’t been made to watch his best friend nearly burn out of existence.

“It’s a transmitter,” Belloq says with a smirk. “It’s a radio for speaking directly to God  _ Himself _ .”

“Herself,” Azirpahale mumbles under his breath, a knee-jerk reaction.

“What was that?” Belloq says and Aziraphale finally loses his composure. The bottle smashes to the floor as in one fell swoop Aziraphale has Belloq by the throat. Around him the bar patrons pull out their weapons and train them on him. He can’t bring himself to care.

“You’d like to talk...to God? Would you really like to speak with Her?” Aziraphale can feel one of his eyes twitching, divine energy pulsing through his veins. “Dear fellow, I do believe I can arrange that and gladly, why don’t we go talk to Her together. I don’t have any plans.”

Aziraphale hears a familiar truck engine outside, squeezes Belloq’s throat just a little tighter. The gunmen around him cock their weapons as Belloq struggles. 

The door slams open and Sallah’s children run in. Guns are lowered immediately and Aziraphale lets go of Belloq. 

“Uncle Ezra, Uncle Ezra! Quickly, Father needs to see you,” the oldest of the bunch says as he pulls on Aziraphale’s arm. The others pushing and pulling at him, cajoling him towards the door. 

“Looks like we’ll have to continue this another time,” he says over his shoulder as they make their way through the stunned crowd. “Do be careful, old boy! Cairo is a dangerous place!”

“Next time, Ezra Fell,” Belloq rasps, rubbing his throat. “Next time it will take more than children to save you!”

Aziraphale laughs as the monkey jumps back on his shoulder and Sallah’s children pull him past the men with guns and out the door into the street. Sallah is waiting there with his truck, chuckling.

“I thought I might find you here, Ezra.” Sallah gestures to his children as they scramble to climb into the back of the truck. “Better than the Corps of Royal Marines, these ones.”

“And at least three times as competent,” Aziraphale jokes as he helps Sallah lift a couple of the little ones into the truck bed. He swallows hard and turns to look at Sallah again, “Crowley’s dead.”

Sallah heaves a sigh and claps a reassuring hand to Aziraphale’s shoulder, “I know, I heard. And I’m sorry for your loss.” He gestures to his children again. “But, life goes on, and there is the proof!”

Aziraphale lets slip a small smile. The love Sallah has for his family and for his children permeates everything around them. Aziraphale may be sad about Crowley right now, but he is still an angel at the end of the day. Love soothes him. And Crowley isn’t  _ really _ gone, at least not forever.

“Come, my friend,” Sallah says as he climbs into the truck. “I have much to tell you, and not all of it good, I’m afraid. We’ll take them home and then we’ll go to see the old man.”

“Ah yes, the translator, will he be able to parse it?” Aziraphale asks, circling and climbing in the passenger seat.

“He thinks he’ll be able to, yes.”

“What was his name again?”

Sallah starts the engine and they pull out of the marketplace. “There are some who call him Tim.”

\---

**_The Residence of Tim, Local Translator. Cairo._ **

Sallah had indeed had much to tell him, and not all of it good. Somehow, despite Aziraphale’s confidence that he could not, Belloq and his team had seemingly found the Well of Souls that morning. 

“I cannot for the life of me figure out how Belloq did it.” Aziraphale taps his chin, leaning back against a pillar in the smoky room. 

“I tell you only what I saw with my own eyes,” Sallah says as a boy brings in a bowl of dates, placing it on the table in the center of the room. “A headpiece like that one. Except, around the edges, it was rougher. In the center was a crystal, surrounded on one side by raised markings, the same as yours.”

Aziraphale watches Tim turn the medallion over and over in his hands, reading the ancient text. The smell of patchouli is strong here - wisps of smoke from the incense burners spreading the scent through the room. They might be too late.

“And their calculations. They made them in the map room?” Aziraphale crosses over to the table, grabbing a handful of the fruits.

“Just this morning. Belloq and the German boss, Dietrich,” Sallah says as he fiddles nervously with his hat. “When they came out of the map room, they gave us a new spot in which to dig, far out away from the camp.”

“Do you think they’ve found it? The Well of Souls?” If the Nazis are any closer to finding it, it spells bad news for everyone. Maybe he shouldn’t have underestimated Belloq quite so much. 

Sallah nods at him solemnly, “Hard to say, really. Belloq did not seem very confident, and most of the team is sure there’s nothing. But I know what I saw.”

Aziraphale wishes Crowley were still here. Nothing to be done about it now, though. He’d drowned his sorrows, nearly gotten shot, and had come here to continue his mission. It was well past time to buck up and get on with it. He rolls a date between his fingers, thinking of their exchange in the marketplace earlier that day. He’d come so close to saying something important, to landing on something truthful. Then all of this mess had happened, now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the chance. He lifts the date up to his mouth, but before he can take a bite, Tim calls out to them.

“Aha!” Tim waves them over excitedly. “Come, come, look! Sit down. Come, come, sit down.”

“What is it then?” Aziraphale asks as he sinks onto one of the poufs littering the ground, leaning in and perching his reading glasses on his nose.

“This—” Tim points to the writing on the front of the medallion “—is a warning, not to disturb the Ark of the Covenant.”

“Yes, we know that much.” Sallah says, taking his own place on the floor.

“But what about the…the height of the staff? Did Belloq get it from this?”

“Yes, right here,” Tim says as he runs a finger along the writing on the edge of the medallion. “This was the old way, this means six kadam high.”

“That would be about 72 inches.” Sallah says after some quick mental calculations.

“Ah, but wait,” Tim flips the medallion over, pointing out more writing on the back. “Just here, it says ‘And take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark this is.’”

Tim hands the medallion back to Aziraphale with a smile. “Thank you ever so much, Tim, we are eternally grateful for your assistance.” Aziraphale shakes his hand and passes a blessing for him and his children before standing. Sallah follows him back to the foyer.

Aziraphale grabs Sallah by the arm and leans in close, voice hushed. “You said their headpiece only had markings on the one side, yes?” Sallah nods at him. “And you are absolutely sure of this?”

“Yes, I saw it myself.”

Aziraphale smiles the first real smile he’s had all day, “Belloq’s staff is too long.”

“They’re digging in the wrong place,” they say at the same time and with the same measure of giddiness. Sallah starts to march around and breaks into song. Aziraphale watches him, laughing, before tossing a date in the air to catch with his mouth.

Before the date can land, Sallah snaps it out of the air. Aziraphale follows Sallah’s gaze to spot their little monkey friend, prone on the ground in a pile of half eaten fruits.

“Bad dates,” Sallah says as he turns to look at him. They both know, though it’s unspoken, that the dates were not merely bad. This was an attempt on them.

“Best make a plan then,” Aziraphale says quietly, suddenly painfully aware someone could be listening.

\---

**_Tanis, The Next Morning_ **

Aziraphale and Sallah make their way through the dig site. It’s a massive undertaking spanning several acres, employing what looks to be every digger in Egypt. All of them carefully watched by Nazi soldiers with rather impressive looking submachine guns.

The sun beats down on their backs and Aziraphale is grateful for the ability to choose not to require sweat to cool off. He’s disguised to blend in with the diggers, wearing a kaffiyeh to obscure his face. They make their way carefully through the dig site, wanting to avoid unwanted attention.

“Heavens,” Aziraphale says, taking note of the scope of the project, “they really aren’t joking are they?” Sallah shakes his head as they round a tent, ducking through the spaces in between to avoid being spotted by the guards. 

The scope is so massive, and all for the gain of evil men. Aziraphale has become more and more jaded with academia in his years working within it. Men believing that something belongs to them which does not. Taking from the cultures that created it and putting it behind plate glass with a little placard and pretending the artifacts are better for it. A joke, at best. The level of care needed to tend to ancient things was not something that imperialists were good at. Don’t even get him started on the “Elgin” Marbles...

He thinks of Crowley, as he usually does. He’d enjoy this sunlight and heat, could cause quite a bit of trouble if he were here. Aziraphale wonders briefly if he’ll ever see his friend again this century.

“What time will the sun hit the map room?” He asks, trying to refocus on the task at hand.

“At about 9:00 this morning,” Sallah says, still in the lead. He pauses to gather a length of rope from a pile near one of the tents.

“Ah, not much time then,” Aziraphale says. He looks around at the various digs working throughout the area. “Where are they digging for the Well of Souls?”

Sallah points to a high ridge far from where they are. The diggers crawling all over it look like ants from here. “On that ridge, but the map room is over there.”

“Best get a wiggle-on then, come on.”

They take a detour through one of the ditches that’s been dug throughout the site and climb up what appears to be a small hill.

As they crest the hill, Aziraphale spares a quick look around — a hint of a miracle to keep them hidden from prying eyes. Just for a moment. There’s some roping surrounding a small hole in the ground, just big enough for a human to fit through. The skylight that was used to collect sunlight, now repurposed as an entrance. 

Aziraphale drops a staff (properly measured to the right specifications) down into the chamber entrance before taking one end of the length of rope. Sallah holds the other end steady as Aziraphale lowers himself into the chamber.

Aziraphale takes in the ancient stone architecture as he makes his descent. Clever humans, building these things from the mud and the clay. Coming up with things like pictographs; still communicating with the world from centuries in the past. He can’t help but admire their ingenuity.

This chamber is a testament to that, and he can’t help but pause for a moment of reverence. It’s been buried under the sand for centuries, but it’s still standing. A high, domed stone ceiling is above him, accented by an orange colored band of hieroglyphs near the top. 

In the center, carved directly into the bedrock at his feet, is a perfectly scaled miniature model of the city of Tanis in its prime — with one building bearing a swastika in red spray paint.

“That must be where they think it is,” Aziraphale says to himself. “We’ll just see about that.”

A slab of stone, pockmarked with a grid of holes, sits in front of the miniature city. A chart marking the seasons and the time of day. With a wave of his hand, the sand covering it dissipates. 

“Well then—” he says, perching his reading glasses on his nose and taking out a small notebook, “—to work.”

He measures and calculates, based on theories he’s read a million times and charts on the Earth’s curvature he’d copied into the book. Eventually, he settles on a solution. He takes a pocket watch out of his robes and checks — 10 minutes to 9. Perfect timing. He picks the staff up off the ground and fixes the medallion to the staff. He charts out the season and the time of day, and finds his mark.

He slides the end of the staff into what he believes to be the correct hole and waits. As he waits, he begins to reminisce.

He and Crowley (then known as Crawly), back in the ancient days, had tagged along with Moses after that whole bit with the plagues and the sea. Crowley talked a big game about leading them all into temptation. About needing someone to stick around and thwart him lest he try.

Aziraphale saw through this, of course. Crowley wasn’t the only one who was lonely.

Aziraphale, looking back at his long life, would find very few regrets. Mount Horeb would place somewhere at the top of that list.

He had left Crowley on his own at the foot of the mountain while he went with Moses to the top. It had been one of the only times in the early days he’d really and truly wished he’d gone against Heaven’s orders.

Aziraphale is broken from his musings when the sun hits the staff, casting a bright beam of light down across the miniature city. He holds his breath (not that he needs to breathe) as the light settles on a small building, just left of center and a bit of a ways back.

The building glows bright and Aziraphale can’t help the giddy smile that breaks across his face.

“The Well of Souls,” he murmurs to himself, mystified. “How about that then, you insufferable French bastard.”

He makes a mental note of which building it is before taking a fabric measuring tape out of his robes. Using Belloq’s incorrect guess, he calculates some distances in his small leather notebook. He snaps it closed — with all the boundless confidence one can only get from being right when someone they dislike is wrong — and practically skips back towards the entrance.

He has a moment of confusion, seeing the rope gone. This is short lived as a new rope falls through the hole in the ceiling. Notably, this was made out of tablecloths and Nazi flags.

“Sorry, old friend,” Sallah says as Aziraphale makes his way back out, “had to cause a bit of a distraction. They still don’t know you’re here.”

“Very good,” Aziraphale says as they hurry off. “And I believe I’ve found the correct location!”

Sallah opens his mouth to speak but before he can they are stopped by several soldiers. “What is this, what are you doing here?”

“Please, my friends, what is the matter?” Sallah says to them, distracting them in another direction while Aziraphale ducks away. “I fetch the water, I shall get it for you!” Sallah continues babbling as Aziraphale makes his escape.

Grateful for the distraction, Aziraphale darts between two tents, only to find two more Nazi soldiers blocking his other escape route.  _ Bollocks _ , he thinks to himself before lifting the edge of one tent and slipping underneath. He holds very still for a moment, listening to the soldiers talking as they pass by his hiding place, before breathing a sigh of relief. 

“Took you long enough, Angel.” 

It’s like hearing a ghost, a voice from beyond the pale. Aziraphale turns slowly, not daring to hope. But it  _ is _ — Crowley is here and he’s alive.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouts as he rushes forward, ready as anything to throw his arms around Crowley, damn the consequences. He’s so distracted seeing Crowley alive and well, he doesn’t notice the occult-made barrier until he runs headlong into it with a loud thunk.

“Devils’ trap,” Crowley says. His voice is muffled as if behind thick glass, and he appears to be leaning against thin air. He raps a couple of times on the barrier, making a hollow sound, before pointing towards the ground. Thick, red paint is spread across a rug, a circle with various runes and sigils. Extremely effective at keeping a demon in place. “You neglected to tell me your friend Belloq had such an affinity for the occult.”

“But how…I saw the truck…and it just…” Aziraphale paces back and forth at a loss for words, “Crowley, I saw the truck explode. You were in it, I was sure. But I looked. I searched and I…I couldn’t find you.”

“Hey now,” Crowley says with a grin, “don’t go getting sentimental, angel, not very becoming of an adventurer. Do us a favor, yeah? Miracle this rug gone so I can get out of here before that crazy French bastard comes back.”

“Yes, right, silly me, I’ll have you out in a jiffy.” Aziraphale raises his hand to snap as Crowley continues.

“Kept asking about you, about the great Doctor Ezra Fell, it’s hilarious, really. Your reputation precedes you.”

Aziraphale’s hand stops in the air. “If they’re asking about me...that means they suspect I’m here...”

“Angel?” Crowley asks, moving closer and pressing both hands to the barrier. “Aziraphale, what are you waiting for, get me out of here and let’s go.”

“I can’t,” Aziraphale says, lowering his hand, “I know where the Ark is, Crowley.”

“Right, great, super, absolutely  _ tickety-boo _ . Now get me out of here, and we’ll go find it!”

“I really hate to do this, my dear, but if you don’t stay here and keep shtum, this whole thing is going to be rather pointless I’m afraid.” Aziraphale makes a motion to do…what, he’s not actually sure. Press his hand to the barrier? Wave? Blow a bloody kiss or something? He loses the thread halfway through and waves his hand around noncommittally instead while shuffling backwards out of the tent.

“Hey, hey!” Crowley shouts, banging his palms flat against the barrier, “Angel, are you crazy? Let me out of here!”

“They’ll know I’m here if I let you out now!” Aziraphale practically hisses at him, “and that would do none of us any good. I’ll come back for you once Sallah and his men get the Ark away from here.”

“Aziraphale!” He hears Crowley’s muffled shouting as he leaves the tent to search for Sallah. Not the best plan, and he’s sure he’ll hear about it later. But one thing at a time, at least Crowley is alive.

\---

**_Tanis dig site, about 30 yards away_ **

This was ridiculous. The whole situation had been ridiculous from the get go, but being the laughingstock of the archaeology community had been grating on him long enough.

It’s what they say, isn’t it? Desperate times calling for desperate measures?

The situation wasn’t  _ all _ bad, all things considered. He had a nice tent, anything he needed. He’d even found an actual demon- he could finally legitimize his research and theories in the eyes of academia.

But any time Colonel Dietrich came sniffing around needing to talk, he started to think he was the punchline of a cosmic joke that he wasn’t able to understand. A visit from the Colonel was rarely pleasant.

“I told you not to be premature in your communique to Berlin.” Belloq says for what feels like the fiftieth time this week as the two of them stalk through the dig site, dodging workers and scaffolding. “Archaeology is not an exact science. It does not deal in time schedules.” He quickens his pace, hoping that Dietrich will take the hint and just leave him alone.

“The Führer is not a patient man,” Dietrich says, undeterred, goose-stepping after Belloq as fast as he can. “He demands constant reports, and he expects progress. You led me to believe—”

“Nothing!” Belloq interrupts through gritted teeth as he turns sharply, jabbing a finger into the Colonel’s chest. “I made no promises. I only said it looked very favorable. Besides, with the information in our possession, my calculations are correct.”

He’s gone over the possibility in his head. Things like this have so much nuance, so many things that can be lost in translation. It’s  _ entirely _ possible his calculations had been wrong, that the carving they found in those first ruins had been off somehow. It might not have been the Staff of Ra that had been depicted in it at all.

“In reality, who knows? Perhaps the Ark is still waiting in some antechamber for us to discover. Perhaps there’s some vital bit of evidence which eludes us. Perhaps—”

“Perhaps that demon you found, if it  _ is _ in fact a demon, can help us. It  _ was _ in possession of the original piece.”

“I am doing my best to find out what he knows,” Belloq says, rubbing his eyes in annoyance. “There is a chance, his possession of the medallion was not by chance, he may have been a trusted advisor to Pharaoh. Possibly even considered to be a god.” 13

“It all seems a bit…false to me. I’ll give you an hour. If it cannot divulge anything useful, I’ll have it shot in the head.”

Belloq opens his mouth to protest, but someone beats him to it.

“Colonel, that is not your call to make,” says an unmistakably nasally voice. Toht stands with a false smile on his face, flanked by a soldier on either side.

Colonel Dietrich immediately clicks his heels and salutes, “Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” Toht answers before continuing. “Colonel, as you are well aware, Reichsführer Himmler has his own interests at play. As Gestapo, part of my job is to make sure those interests are…heh…met.”

“Yes, of course Herr Toht.” Dietrich babbles as Belloq suppresses a laugh. He doesn’t care for any of these people, but it’s always nice to see someone taken down a peg.

“The demon is an asset to the Führer’s…heh…plans,” Toht says, pulling off his glasses and cleaning them in a way that should not read as threatening but does. “If it does not talk, we have ways of dealing with that. Ways that I am proficient in.”

Belloq could swear the air gets a few degrees cooler in that moment. Nazis, Belloq can deal with, but Toht genuinely scares him. He’s not really sure if Toht is actually a  _ human _ sometimes. Maybe he had been searching too hard for demons if the Nazi’s already had one working for them.

“The study of the occult is very important to Reichsführer Himmler. The demon must be preserved so it can be dissected and studied.”

Belloq winces despite himself. Nazis are all the same: get to things quickly and by any means necessary. Why use a pick and a trowel when you can just blast things away with dynamite? Why keep this demon for what he is, a wealth of information on subjects the human mind cannot yet comprehend, when you can just dissect him and find out how his parts tick.

“Speaking of the demon,” Toht says, turning to Belloq, “you have it suitably trapped, yes?”

“I have him inside a devils’ trap, yes. Perfectly sufficient for our current needs.”

“Yes, well, certain security measures must be taken, you see. I’ll be needing that ring.”

“Wait just a minute, the ring is mine, it’s from my own private collection! I’m not just going to—”

He’s interrupted by the sound of guns cocking. Toht’s flanking soldiers train their weapons on him.

“Think of it as collateral,  _ Monsieur _ .” Toht says with a sneer, “It is of the utmost importance that we can…heh…control the thing if we need to. Once it has been sequestered in Berlin, along with the Ark, you can have your silly trinket back.”

Belloq weighs his options, finding only one logical outcome. He takes the ring off his finger and drops it into Toht’s waiting hand.

“See? That was not so difficult, was it?”

Belloq bids the group a hasty goodbye and hurries back to his tent, hoping that the demon is feeling talkative this evening.

\---

**_Supposed Location of the Well of Souls_ **

Lightning strikes in the distance, lighting up the early evening darkness. Sallah had gathered a team of the best and they had been digging since midafternoon. With every digger in Egypt busy at the site, twenty or so of them missing would go unnoticed.

Aziraphale watches the gathering storm clouds with trepidation, listening to the pickaxes bite into the ground behind him. He wonders if it’s a sign of things to come.

“Ezra, over here!” Sallah calls out behind him as the diggers start to chatter excitedly. “We’ve hit stone!”

“Excellent, excellent,” Aziraphale says as he rushes over, crouching down with the rest of them, pushing handfuls of dirt and sand out of the way. “Come on, then, find the edges!”

They work at it for a few minutes until the square outline of a loose stone slab in the roof can be seen.

“Alright, let’s get the pry bars in, come on now!” One of the men passes Aziraphale a pry bar of his own and they get to work, leveraging their weight against the seal that pressure and time have created to keep the stone in place.

“As a team, men, as a team!” Sallah keeps them on task, working as a unit. Truly the best at what he does. Aziraphale is grateful to have his help.

A noise of suction as one corner finally releases. “Good, that’s it,” Aziraphale says, “watch your toes, then!”

The stone is lifted carefully and moved to one side. Aziraphale and Sallah crouch down at the hole, peering inside the chamber within. A flash of lightning illuminates a statue with snarling teeth and beady red eyes. Sallah jumps back and screams.

“It’s alright,” Aziraphale says with a laugh, clapping his old friend on the shoulder. “Looks to be Anubis, if I’m not mistaken. Might be Wepwawet, but Anubis seems more likely.”

“Right, statue, of course,” Sallah says a bit sheepishly before holding his torch closer to the entrance for a better look. “Say, Ezra…why does the floor move?”

Aziraphale peers down into the hole. The floor does look like it’s moving. Writhing and slithering, even. It’s completely covered in snakes.

“Snakes, apparently,” Aziraphale says. “Makes sense, really, given the circumstances. Probably should have expected them.”

“Still, asps,” Sallah says with a shudder. “Very dangerous. You go first.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. They’re just snakes. Sallah collects a few torches and tosses them down into the hole.

The diggers hold a rope as Aziraphale lowers himself down, Sallah shouting for him to be careful. He makes it safely to the bottom and takes in the sight of the room. Two great statues of Anubis and Horace, intricate carving on the walls and columns, and a large stone chest at the other end of the room that, hopefully, holds what they came for.

A cobra near his foot rears back and hisses, fanning it’s hood out, barring its fangs. “Oh, shush, you,” Aziraphale tuts at it, nudging it away with the toe of his boot. “All hiss and no bite, calm down.” The snake slithers away as though it understands the stern talking to, and the rest of them give a wide berth around the torches that had been tossed in.

“Alright, Sallah, down you get! We don’t have all night!”

\---

**_Belloq’s Tent; late evening._ **

Crowley is transcendentally  _ bored _ . He’s been stuck in this trap for a couple of days, but it feels like years without his connection to his hellish powers. That’s the thing about devils’ traps he hates most- the cutoff.

He’s lying on his back, counting the stitches in the tent lining.

“347, 348, 349…” he says under his breath. He’s counted them several times now. There’s seven hundred and ninety-three. But he’s counting them again, just to be sure.

“Absolute  _ connard _ !”

Crowley jumps as Belloq storms into the tent, muttering a string of curses in French as he slams things around the tent.

“Oi, you there, Frenchie,” Crowley says, leaning back against the invisible barrier, “bad day?”

Belloq turns and glares at him. Crowley gestures for him to forget about it and goes back to staring at the stitching. He realizes that he’s lost count and Belloq’s constant pacing and cursing isn’t helping.

“Forgive me asking — or don’t, demon after all — but if these friends of yours are so bad that you have to utter things that make even  _ me _ clutch at my pearls, well, makes me wonder. Why are you even  _ here _ ?”

Belloq heaves a heavy sigh. “At this particular time and place, to do my work, they are necessary evils. They are most certainly  _ not _ my friends.”

“Ah, right, my mistake,” he says with a smile, but doesn’t continue. Crowley knows his way around manipulation. Knows how to gently nudge and bump humans into doing exactly what he needs them to do. It’s in the job description after all. 

Part of a demon’s abilities is the means to sense the vices. Lust, greed, wrath, sloth. But Crowley has imagination, something most demons lack. A wonderful side effect of the Arrangement has been applying that imagination to the vices, and knowing where they intersect with the virtues. Heaven would’ve caught on to their game a long time ago if he couldn’t pass as an angel, after all.

Simmering under the wrath and the greed that permeate Belloq is something that seems like Sloth, if it were the opposite. Diligence. Say what you can about the man but he makes a plan and he sticks to it, even when he’s in over his head. 

“Admirable, really,” Crowley says after a moment. “Ambition is something that we can respect  _ downstairs _ .”

Belloq laughs, pulling open a drawer and digging out a bottle of brandy and a glass. “Is it? Couldn’t have guessed.” Belloq taps his finger against the bottle and Crowley can’t help but notice the ring is missing. Half of the tether holding him in place is gone. Not that it matters, being trapped in the circle and all. But the alcohol gives him an idea.

“No need to be rude. Besides, I think I have something that you need, tell me if I’m wrong? You need to know where the Ark is, you think I know. Or, at the very least, your  _ friends _ think I know.”

“Do you know?” 

“Honestly, no. I’ve already told you everything I know. Angelic wards on it, couldn’t find it if I wanted to, not even using hellish intervention.” Crowley doesn’t tell him the whole reason, there’s no need to. If Belloq goes this batty over having a living, breathing demon around — he’d hate to think what they’d do to Aziraphale if they found out what he actually was.

“That’s a shame. You know what they’re going to do to you?” Belloq asks in a way Crowley knows is supposed to read as intimidating. It’s a poor attempt at best.

“I highly doubt there’s anything they can do to me.”

“They’re going to take you back to Berlin,” Belloq says as he pours himself a glass, “put you in a big chamber, and cut you into pieces until they know everything that makes you tick.”

“I’ve slithered out of worse.” Even if they were able to get him all the way back to Berlin and cut him apart, all it would mean is a few centuries in line for a new corporation.

“Maybe so, but if you could give me something to placate them, you wouldn’t have to go through that”— Belloq pauses, swirling the liquor in his glass —“Anything about the Ark, or even about Dr. Ezra Fell.”

“I have no loyalty to Fell,” Crowley lies, like a liar. “Been trying to lead him down the path to darkness, all he’s brought me is trouble.”

“He is quite troublesome, isn’t he?” Belloq says, shooting back his brandy and wincing at the burn. “And you can tell us nothing else about him?”

“Nothing you don’t already know. I have to say though, would be terribly nice to have a drink. It’s been a long few days.”

Belloq considers this for a moment. He opens the drawer again and takes out a second glass. He pulls up a chair, just outside of the trap circle, before pouring Crowley a glass and passing it through the barrier.

“Might as well, what harm could it do?”

\---

**_Inside the Well of Souls_ **

Aziraphale and Sallah stand on either side of the stone chest, minds heavy with the magnitude of the possibilities lying before them.

The chest is put together like a puzzle box, with a thick and heavy lid that extends down the sides. It’s plain and unmarked, utterly unremarkable if one doesn’t know what to look for.

Aziraphale nods as he and Sallah each grip one side of the stone lid. They lift carefully, not wanting to chance damaging anything inside. Aziraphale could lift it on his own, of course. But even with no witness besides Sallah, that would raise questions.

They lift the stone lid up and over, letting it fall to the ground. The Ark sits there, awash in a golden glow. It looks just like it did the day he and Crowley sealed it shut.

As he gazes upon the Ark, Aziraphale can’t help but think back. He had been with Moses, up on the mountain, when he received the commandments. Aziraphale had still been trying to understand why the Lord dealt in the number forty so much. Forty days and nights for Noah’s ark, forty days and nights for Moses. No doubt then what Her favorite number was.

He’d been concerned; there had been a fair bit of unrest in the chosen people before they had left. Moses had asked for their trust, and trusted in turn that nothing would befall them.

“The Lord works in the ways that She deems best, dear Aziraphale,” Moses had said as they climbed the mountain, “I must trust in Her, as Her guidance has served my people well.” Aziraphale had, of course, fretted and worried the whole time. 

Upon their return, they had found Moses’s people worshipping a golden calf, made from their melted jewelry. Aziraphale had accused Crowley — were these the temptations he’d alluded to? Driving people away from God with false idols?

He’d been assured the humans had come up with it all on their own. Aaron, in fact, had been the one to make the calf. To form it and mold it, to plate the wood with the gold. The situation had careened out of control from there, the people losing themselves in the worship of the calf.

Moses’ anger was palpable. He’d smashed the tablets, imbued with holy power. Had Aziraphale not felt it coming and shielded Crowley from it, the demon would have perished completely. Even with Aziraphale’s protection, his demonic essence had been deeply affected. His legs were covered with boils and burns. Half of his face, disfigured and twisted. He’d passed out almost immediately and for the worst twenty minutes of Aziraphale’s life he thought the demon to be truly dead, not even discorporated.

While Moses burned the gold-plated wood to ash and made his followers drink the ash-laden water, Aziraphale had tended to Crowley’s wounds, patching him up best he could. Wasting his miracle quota for the month, probably even the year, keeping Crowley tethered to the moral plane, nearly draining himself completely in the process.

Holy wounds run deep in a demon, and it was sure to be a very long time before Crowley would be able to walk properly again. 

Moses, feeling actually rather bad about the whole thing, had given Crowley his staff as a kind of make-shift crutch. Felt it was the least he could do.

Aziraphale had convinced him that such power needed to be sealed away, far from where humans could get it. They’d conceived the idea of the Ark, and the box was built over the course of several days.

Crowley (with his crutch, still the worse for wear) and Aziraphale had stood with Moses as they placed wards on the box, both occult and ethereal. Together, far too much for humans to be able to see through. Occult bindings would cancel out ethereal methods of searching and vice versa.

At this, they had said their goodbyes to the Hebrews. Crowley was in no condition to travel further, and Aziraphale would need to continue healing him. 

They had both been very sure they’d never see this thing again.

\---

11 He may not enjoy scotch, but he wasn’t going to phone it in with a cheap one. He had  _ standards _ after all.

12 Some notable instances of this were: Several full conversations with the ducks in St. James’s Park, an embarrassing moment in the London zoo where he’d mistaken a snake on display for Crowley, and, most notable, an entire drunken argument with a first edition of The Picture of Dorian Grey about whether French or Italian was the superior cuisine.

13 In fact Crowley had, back in early days, been known as Apophis, the Egyptian God of Chaos - often depicted as a large snake. Go ahead, look it up, I’ll wait.

  
  



	4. Where does it hurt?

**_Belloq’s Tent, Dig Site at Tanis. Almost dawn._ **

Crowley downs his third glass of brandy, feeling the burn as it runs down his throat. He’s still perfectly sober, but making a show of not being. Belloq has devolved from one rant to the other, finally settling on Nazis in general.

“I don’t even want to work with them, they’re just the only ones taking me seriously! Even then, they really aren’t.”

“Facist regimes usually  _ only _ take themselves seriously. Big reason why they happen. It’s all me, me, me, I, I, I and off they go.” Crowley gestures broadly as he speaks, playing up the motion, creating a false sense of security.

“You must’ve seen quite a few of them.”

“In my experience,” Crowley says, adding a hiss into the word for effect, “humans are pretty much all the same. You’ve seen one regime, you’ve seen them all.” 

“The knowledge of humanity you must have. I wonder how many history books have it wrong?”

“Ah- here, let me,” Crowley extends a hand and Belloq passes him the bottle. “You’d be surprised how much they get right, actually. And how much of what’s right they say is false.” He pours himself another glass, tops off Belloq’s when he extends it out. “King Arthur, for example: great fella. Bit too great, spreading his  _ good will _ all over the bloody place.”

“King Arthur was  _ real _ ?”

“Oh yeah, whole thing. Lady of the Lake and all that nonsense. Dinosaurs, though. Completely fake. Big cosmic joke, that one.”

“Astounding. You could completely rewrite human history!” Belloq exclaims as he throws back his liquor. Crowley laughs and makes a show of spilling his glass. “Oops,” Belloq slurs at him, devolving into laughter of his own.

Crowley watches the brandy at the edge of the circle as it streaks the red paint where it drags through it. He sighs and cracks his spine, feeling his power start to trickle back. Be a few minutes yet before it’s enough for him to break out, but not much longer.

Crowley passes the bottle back with a smirk, tosses his own back again.14 It’s good, better than a lot of the swill he had in Nepal. “This is some good stuff.” Crowley downs the little bit left in his glass. “Where’d you get it anyway?”

“I grew up with this,” Belloq is, at this point, unable to even sit up straight. Swaying from side to side, face red and splotchy. All according to plan. “It’s my family label!”

Crowley can feel the tingle of hellish power creeping back to the center of him. Spreading along his fingers and toes, up the lines of his bones. A dark and creeping thing. Spooky. Like the chill you get in a dilapidated old house. The feel of something foreboding. He almost has enough to break through. The barrier is weakening.

“Tell me more, demon—“

“The name’s Crowley, if you don’t mind.”

“Right, Crowley,” Belloq corrects himself and leans forward to pour Crowley another glass. “What about the Bible? How much of it is wrong?”

“The Heaven should I know? I’m a demon, I can’t even touch those.”

“Ah, sorry, silly assumption.”

“Just a bit,” Crowley says with more than a hint of offense. He’s still not over the time Aziraphale left an old misprinted copy on the sofa in the back room. Hadn’t been able to sit for weeks after that.

A dead silence falls between the two of them. Belloq still sways a bit where he sits, knocks back another glass, leaving the bottle nearly empty. The creeping dark continues, the four points of it meeting in the center of Crowley’s chest. He does a quick test, snaps his fingers behind his back, feeling the sparks light there.

He snaps again and the paint on the floor evaporates from around him. In one smooth motion he lunges for the bottle, smashes it on the edge of the table and brandishes it in Belloq’s face. A shift in ozone, just a bit of demonic energy, and the edges of the glass glow with heat and hellfire.

“You!” Belloq exclaims, looking behind him to the rug. “How!”

“Notice your fancy jewelry is missing, what’s up with that?”

“I-I-“ Belloq’s eyes keep darting behind him as Crowley slowly backs towards the tent flap.

“Not so powerful without it, eh?” Crowley smirks at him. Humans are so fucking easy when the cards are played right. “I really must be going now. Was a fun time! Maybe we’ll meet again on a better occasion.”

Crowley turns to make his escape, manifesting his wings. Great black feathers fill the tent, more void than true color, blocking out the scant amount of light that remains. He ducks out and kicks off the ground into the breaking dawn light, taking to the sky to search for Aziraphale. A hill just to the west, a lightning strike and that telltale divinity in the air. Gotcha.

He has about five seconds to pat himself on the back before he’s frozen in midair.

“We meet again, Jungchen!” A familiar nasally voice calls out to him. “Quite an interesting predicament you find yourself in, heh, isn’t it?”

Crowley tries to fight the pull against his being as he’s dragged back down to earth, the wings on his back disappearing without his say so. He lands facing the man from the bar back in Nepal. Just as condescending as he was before.

“What kind of a demon does not use his powers?” The man says with the same temperament one would scold a toddler with. “You could have dispatched me and my men with a thought back in the mountains, yet you did not?”

Crowley doesn’t answer, but he sees the glinting silver on the man’s hand. The Seal of Solomon. Well, fuck.

“Answer me!” The man shouts and Crowley is compelled by forces beyond his control.

“Didn’t feel like it. Too messy. Not much of a demon in the first place. Never meant to Fall.” It falls out of him like truth serum and stings his throat. The man and his two guards laugh.

“So not only a demon, but a pathetic one at that.” The man sneers at him, his weaselly face trying to seem more intimidating than it actually is. “Now then, Jungchen, what shall we talk about?” 

Another lightning strike hits the hill behind them, and Belloq spares a glance at it as he emerges from the tent. His posture straightens as realization dawns on his face.

“Why are there diggers up there? I didn’t send them there,” Belloq runs past them, rousing the nearby soldiers and directing them to the hill.

Crowley swallows hard as the camp erupts into chaos.  _ Get the fuck out of there, angel. _

\---

**_Inside the Well of Souls, sometime around 7 am_ **

After inspecting the Ark as thoroughly as he dared _ in situ _ , Aziraphale is ready to have it hoisted out of the chamber. He still isn’t sure where he’s planning to take it. Doesn’t really trust the SIS with it any more than he would the Nazis.

The Ark itself seemed to glow with the power of the tablets inside of it. Not quite a light source, but definitely bending the light around it. There were two long poles in the stone chest next to it, to be used by the people charged with carrying it.

The workers had lowered down a crate as Aziraphale and Sallah checked for booby traps. Finding none, or at least nothing noteworthy, they slid the poles through the golden loops along the sides of the Ark and lifted it out of the stone. 

It was beautiful, golden and just ornate enough. Intricate inlays and gold filigrees adorned the sides and the lid. Two angels, kneeling with their wings stretched in front of them, flank the lid. Cherubim meant to guard and watch over it.15 Were it not for the contents, it would belong in a museum.

They lift the Ark out slowly, minding their steps for both chunks of stone and snakes, and carry it to the entrance. They slowly lower it into the crate before attaching the top and two ends and nailing it shut. 

Aziraphale pulls a rope tight around the crate. “Alright my good fellows, take it up, easy does it!”

He watches as the Ark is lifted out of its resting place, feeling all the while like this is quite possibly the worst idea he’s ever gone along with. He thinks of Crowley and his burns, of Moses and his anger. Aziraphale averts his gaze and shakes his head.

“Ezra, the torches are starting to go out,” Sallah says to him in the fading light of the chamber.

“Yes, right, you first then, up you go.” 

Sallah climbs the rope as Aziraphale holds it steady. He casts an eye over the assembled snakes, daring them to try biting either of them. He knows they won’t.

Aziraphale looks up in time to see Sallah climb out of the entrance, feeling the rope go slack in his hand. It falls and coils at his feet. “Sallah?!”

“Hello, Dr. Fell,” a voice answers in a haughty French accent. “Whatever are you doing in such a  _ nasty _ place?” Belloq stares down at him, just as smug as he was in the bar. 

“Ah, you could come down here! I’d be happy to show you!” Aziraphale says in the happiest voice he can muster before murmuring something under his breath about insufferable French bastards.

“Thank you, but I think we are all very comfortable up here. That’s right, isn’t it?” Belloq gestures to people that Aziraphale cannot see, but can hear laughing besides. “So it seems, Dr. Fell, what was briefly yours is now mine.”

“Belloq, you don’t know what you are dealing with!”

“I assure you, Dr. Fell, I have read all the research you have. Besides, you should be honored! You’re about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find.” Belloq tosses a cheap tin pocket watch into the chamber, “Who knows? In a thousand years even you may be worth something.”

“Ah yes, very funny,” Aziraphale laughs through gritted teeth.

“It is an honor to meet you properly, Dr. Fell,” the man in the black hat from Nepal comes into view, “but I am afraid we must be going now. Our prize, heh, is awaited in Berlin. But I do not wish to leave you down in that horrid place all alone.”

“I swear to Satan if you don’t let me go—” 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouts as Crowley is dragged into view by two soldiers.

“Now hold on a second,” Belloq shouts at the man, suddenly incensed, “the demon is mine, we had an agreement.”

“It is of more use to the Fuhrer, not to  _ you _ . We’ll bury it in the sand for a while, let it cool its heels. Come back in a couple of months and dig it back out. It’ll be safe and trapped here.”

“But… but my research! He is the  _ lynchpin  _ of my research!”

“That, you’d do well to remember, is not our problem.” The man motions to the soldiers, and Crowley is thrown into the opening. He manages to grip the teeth of the Anubis statue before he falls the full way.

“Crowley! Hang on!”

“Yeah, what the bloody else would I be—”

The tooth he’s holding onto breaks and he tumbles down, slamming into the statue's knee before landing directly on top of Aziraphale, knocking him to his back.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asks as Crowley’s gaze turns towards him. The situation is not lost on him, even for this brief moment. Crowley is a mess- hair out of place, clothes a bit tattered. Very rarely is he ever seen like this, so disheveled and not put together. 

Aziraphale, despite himself, reaches out and tucks a lock of Crowley’s hair behind his ear. This, it seems, is enough to break the spell and Crowley scrambles off of him. “Traitor,” he hisses out, “you left me there!”

“I had to and you know it,” Aziraphale whispers angrily, “don’t be so daft, serpent.”

Above them, the man laughs. “Auf wiedersehen! We’ll be back,” he shouts as the tile is shifted back into place, new wards and sigils visible from their position on the floor.

“Well, that’ll keep me in here,” Crowley says with a sigh. “He’s an idiot but he did his research.”

“Rather…” Aziraphale says, trailing off a bit. “Look, I’m sorry I left you there but I didn’t exactly have another choice.”

“I know, still stings a bit though.”

Crowley does have a point. Not that it makes a difference now, but with everything else that’s happened since 1862, Aziraphale would be blind not to realize how much this could sting.

One of the snakes near Crowley’s feet hisses. “Oi, bugger off will you!” The snake rears up in rapt attention and the rest follow suit. “Bloody snakes, every time. What was it that made the pharaohs throw these nuisances everywhere?” The snakes somehow manage to look vaguely offended.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, dear, but I believe that was you.”

Crowley gestures at the snakes while making a series of vaguely unintelligible sounds. Aziraphale is fairly sure that he means it was not supposed to go so far as trapping snakes in tombs, but Crowley has never been good with words.

“How about you just… keep them busy while I find a way out of here.”

“Oh, yes, of  _ course _ , sure, I’ll keep your new  _ friends _ busy.”

“Really, Crowley?”

“Lotssss of new friendssss for you here,  _ angel _ .”

“You’re just mad because Astaroth’s sigil gives you indigestion, now hush.”

Crowley rolls his eyes but settles himself on a collapsed column. The snakes flock to him, just as Aziraphale knew they would. He looks up to the entrance. If he could shift the tile, they could get out of here. Fly out, as it were. But sigils are powerful things, requiring a large force of energy to dispel, even from an angel. Not like devil’s traps - these are much more complex. 

Best look for another way out first.

\---

“Talk to the snakes, he says,” Crowley mutters under his breath, looking at the snakes that stare back at him. Hundreds of beady little eyes flickering in the torchlight. Being the original serpent, snakes tended to  _ like _ him. Bloody annoying, is what it is.

He watches Aziraphale for a moment. The angel’s brow is furrowed as he paces around the room. He stops once in a while, trying to parse the hieroglyphs on the wall. Doesn’t fool Crowley, Aziraphale fell out of practice a couple decades after the fall to Rome. He’s performing, biding time. Hoping an answer pops into his head like it so often does.

Crowley has seen him like this before, on a seemingly never-ending hunt for an answer. Has seen him spread out in his shop — an open book on every surface or scrolls of parchment or whatever it might be — because some detail in a book had him vexed or because he needed to know some specific information to do a blessing or a tempting. His brow would be furrowed and he’d pace about. Crowley would offer to help, be met with a shush and a raised hand. All he could do would be to sit back and wait for the penny to drop.

“Hey Aziraphale, anything I can do?” He asks just to confirm his suspicion.

“Shush, Crowley, I’ve almost got it,” Aziraphale tuts, raising his hand in Crowley’s direction to stop him speaking.

“Not surprising,” he says to himself, turning to the snakes that are still staring at him. “So he’s not much for conversation, what’s the story with you lot? Trapped in a temple for centuries, how’d you manage that?”

Crowley, much to his chagrin, befriends the snakes almost immediately. They tell him about their ancestors, dumped unceremoniously into the temple centuries ago. How they survived (not a pretty story), how the conditions are so bad for them. Nowhere good to shed, water only fresh when it rains and after that it stagnates for months or years. However long it takes to rain again.

“That’s appalling!” Might be a bunch of snakes, but they deserve better than that. “Why don’t you just leave? Surely there’s a way out of here?”

No way out, as far as the snakes know. Barely a supply of mice, subsisting on bugs. Awful conditions all around.

“Should form a union at that point. Band together. Demand better from the powers that be.” He’s joking, really. Something to pass the time. These are snakes, they don’t have the means to form organizations.16

He looks over at Aziraphale, who has moved on to examining the somewhat toothless statue of Anubis and staring at the wall across from him. More snakes are coming through the eyes of the carvings and slithering their way towards him. His eyes follow Aziraphale’s hand as it traces along the meticulous patterns on the statue, gently and reverently, amazed at the extent of human creation.

A cobra near his foot hisses knowingly, and the rest join in chorus. “Oi, mind your business,” Crowley snaps at them. “He’s just a friend, that’s all.” The snakes continue their oddly sing-song hissing as the chamber starts to rumble, knocking Crowley off the downed pillar where he sits, and a piece of stone falls from the ceiling and clips his arm.

His eyes go wide as he sits up and looks to the cause of the rumbling in the small chamber: Aziraphale stands, hands braced against the statue’s ankle. He’s dwarfed by the size of it, but size has no bearing on angelic strength. Stones and rubble fall from the ceiling as Aziraphale strains against the weight of the statue, but a crack starts to form at the thinnest part.

Crowley watches, unblinking, as the statue gives. With one good push Aziraphale topples it into the far wall, breaking through it and uncovering a second chamber, with what looks to be sunlight filtering in from one side.

“Well now,” Aziraphale says, dusting his hands off on his trousers. “Not the most elegant method of escape but it should do.”

Crowley stares, unable to speak. He knew the angel was strong but  _ this,  _ this was a sight to behold. Something about it made his stomach do funny little somersaults. 

The cobras slithering around his feet do a very snakey approximation of snickering. “Quiet you lot,” he hisses through gritted teeth. The snakes continue mocking him as Aziraphale walks over, looking completely put together aside from a smattering of dust across his hat and face.

“Well then, that’s one crisis handled. We should probably do our best to catch up to them, yes?” Aziraphale says, easy as anything.

“Y-yeah, sure, angel,” Crowley says, trying to pull his jaw up off the floor. He moves to climb over the rubble and into the opening, but Aziraphale stops him, grabbing him by the wrist.

“Wait, my dear, you’re hurt,” Aziraphale points out the rather large gash running up Crowley’s forearm, “Here, let me.”

Aziraphale takes hold of his own shirt cuff with one hand and raises his elbow to his mouth to hold the fabric tight. A loud ripping sound reverberates through the chamber as he rips the sleeve clean off his shirt at the elbow.

He takes Crowley’s wrist again, winding the ruined shirtsleeve around his arm and tying it off. “Once we’re out of here we’ll spare a miracle on it, for now might as well apply some pressure,” Aziraphale sounds so nonchalant, as if he isn’t turning Crowley’s world upside down with this single act of kindness. He pats the makeshift bandage lightly and awkwardly, as though he’s realizing the absurdity of the situation. “Well then, shall we?” Aziraphale flashes Crowley his trademark self-satisfied smile as he clambers over what little of the ruined wall remains standing, Crowley following close behind.

They make their way along the antechamber, through the spiderwebs and the skeletons, snakes winding between their feet but still carefully avoiding their steps. A patch of light hits the ground where the temple wall has eroded, and they make quick work of turning the hole into an exit.

Crowley is grateful to feel the sun on his face again, almost wants to stretch his wings back out and go make some trouble. The snakes slither out behind them, crossing the sands for destinations unknown.17

“Crowley, look, over there!” Aziraphale grabs him by the arm and points out a large cargo truck. Just visible, in the back, is a crate. “That’s the Ark, I’m sure of it.”

“Are you? Last time you were sure about a truck you thought I was dead.”

“Oh, shush, come on, let’s go.”

They make their way down the hill and across the sand to the camp just in time for the truck to pull away. Just their luck, as per the usual.

“Well, now what?” Crowley asks as Aziraphale scans the area, eyes landing on an enclosure to the side. He looks back to Crowley with an apologetic smile.

“We could use those,” Aziraphale says, gesturing to the enclosure. Crowley’s face falls. Give him cars, motorcycles, a fucking pogo stick,  _ anything _ but this.

“ _ No _ , angel, absolutely not.” Crowley watches the unchanging look on Aziraphale’s face. “I am shocked that you’d even…No.”

Aziraphale heaves a sigh and turns his face in the little half pout he knows Crowley always gives in to. Bloody unfair. 

“Gah, fine,” Crowley throws up his hands in defeat and they make their way to their means of transportation. “Horses…why did it have to be horses.”

Aziraphale climbs onto one and offers his hand. “Come on then, we’ve gotta catch up!”

“Are you serious, I can ride my own horse!” Crowley turns to another horse that snorts in his face and he jumps back with a start. He turns back to Aziraphale, still holding out his hand. “Fine, but I know how you are with horses, try to at least be sensible.”

Aziraphale hoists him up and Crowley settles behind him, trying his best not to touch. He should hold on, probably, but he isn’t going to.

Aziraphale gives the horse its lead, a firm nudge with his boot, and a quiet word of encouragement. The horse does not need further motivation and takes off like a lightning bolt, leaving all Crowley’s thoughts in the dust as he wraps his arms tightly around Aziraphale’s middle.

They crest the hill and see the caravan at the bottom of the cliff; one cargo truck, a couple of motorbikes, and a staff car where Belloq and the two officers are. Aziraphale wheels the horse to the left and kicks his heels, sending the horse into a gallop along the ridge.

The path along the cliffside slopes downward, bringing them parallel to the cargo truck. The horse gamely struggles to keep pace with the machine, but a soft word from Aziraphale lends it a burst of speed. At that moment, the driver looks to his right and, seeing them alongside his window, he pulls his gun.

“I got this one.” Crowley snaps his fingers and the gun turns a red hot orange, burning the driver through his gloves. The driver screams and drops it, letting go of the wheel and causing the truck to veer sideways. As Aziraphale maneuvers the horse dangerously close, Crowley reaches for the door handle and jumps over to the truck. “Get the guards in the back, I’ll drive!”

“Right then,” Aziraphale shouts, “mind how you go!” He pulls back on the reins to slow the horse and Crowley watches him lose ground before jumping onto the back of the truck. The horse veers off in another direction, its speed soon dwindling to a halt without a rider to push it onwards.

Crowley throws the door open and climbs in, grabbing the steering wheel from the passenger seat. The driver is still screaming and clutching his own hand. “Sorry mate, but you’re in the way.” He snaps again and the driver’s side door pops open. The soldier grabs for the doorframe as Crowley pushes him out, but can’t hold on with his burnt hand and tumbles to the dirt.

Crowley settles himself behind the wheel properly, slamming the accelerator as hard as he can. A quick look in the wing mirror shows a guard fly out of the back of the truck, followed just as quickly by another. “Full of surprises, angel,” he mutters under his breath.

A bullet ricochets off the window frame near his face. A motorcycle on his left. Crowley pulls the wheel quickly, slamming into the motorcycle and knocking both it and it’s rider off balance.

Crowley thinks he could get to like these motor vehicle things.

The other comes up on his right, so he tries again. This rider is clever though, varying his speed and swerving out of the way quickly. Suddenly there’s a loud bang and the motorcycle is down. In the wing mirror, Crowley can see Aziraphale hanging from the side of the truck, pistol in his hand and a smirk on his face that Crowley is not used to seeing. Aziraphale carefully makes his way along the side of the truck and climbs in the passenger side door.

“Everything alright back there?”

“Yes, just a couple of guards, nothing too major,” Aziraphale says as he brushes himself off. “Oh, I  _ do _ hope I didn’t hurt them too badly.”

“Angel, they’re Nazis, don’t think you can hurt them enough.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“On another note, I think when we get back to London, I’m going to buy a car.”

“Really, dear? One of these death contraptions?”

“Says the one who almost flung me off a horse! Twice!”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t want to hold on.”

“Shouldn’t bloody have to!”

Their argument is interrupted by a hard slam into the back of the truck. They both lurch forward into the dashboard, the steering wheel slamming into Crowley’s chest and collarbone. It’s followed by a bang and a splintering of glass as the passenger wing mirror explodes into shards of glass.

“They just rammed into us!”

“Yes, Aziraphale, I noticed!”

Crowley glances in his own mirror and sees the staff car, the officer known as Dietrich standing in the back with his pistol leveled as he fires off another shot.

Crowley pushes the gas as far as he can, weaving to try to throw them off, or at least make them overcorrect somewhere. They careen down the dusty roads, the two officers firing off shots. 

“We’re going to have to lose them somehow!” Aziraphale shouts as a bullet whizzes through the canvas and cracks the windshield.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!”

There’s a signpost for a village, just off the main road. Crowley waits until the last second and turns the wheel as sharp to the right as he dares. The truck lurches to one side and Crowley could swear the tires come up off the ground. 

The staff car almost misses the turn, but manages. The truck careens through the village square, busy in the early morning. Crowley dodges as best he can as locals and livestock leap out of the way. Aziraphale is gripping the passenger doorframe as hard as he can. 

The staff car is faster than the truck and is gaining on them. Crowley spots some scaffolding off to the side, and in a last minute gambit, steers directly for it.

“Crowley what are you doing?!”

“Trust me, I’ve got a plan!”

At the last second Crowley jerks the wheel in the opposite direction, turning sharper that it should be able. The staff car, without the aide of demonic intervention, crashes into the scaffolding and stalls. He watches Belloq clamber out of the car in the mirror and throw his hat into the dirt. He steers the truck out of town and back onto the main road.

They drive back to Cairo proper, keeping an eye out for any sign of the Nazis or the staff car as they do. No one interferes with their journey as they pull back into the city. Aziraphale says to head for Sallah’s place, that he’ll know what to do. Crowley just hopes he’s actually there.

Sallah comes rushing out just as they pull up. “Holy smoke, my friends! I’m so pleased you’re not dead!”

“Quite nearly were, to be sure,” Aziraphale says with a laugh. “Do you still have contacts up at Port Said?”

“Yes, of course, my good friend Katanga. He’s a pirate, but he’s mostly harmless.”

“Mostly,” Crowley says with a sneer as Aziraphale shushes him.

“We’ve got the Ark, we just have to get it out of here.”

“Heavens alive, well you won’t want to move it now. Middle of the day the docks will be crawling with soldiers. No, we’d better hide out, I know just the place.” Sallah makes his way around to the passenger side as Aziraphale scoots to the middle. “Head up this side street, Omar’s garage is just down the road. We’ll wait out there until sundown.”

Crowley drives on through the city and decidedly does  _ not _ notice every point of contact where Aziraphale is pressed to his side. Tries not to notice how heavy the angel’s breath is, or the split on his lip. Tries not to think about his own injuries, how much it hurts to move. 

They pass the last of the car ride in silence.

—

**_The docks at Port Said, later that evening:_ **

“Everything is arranged, my friends!” Sallah shouts as he rejoins them on the dock, a tall man in a turtleneck with a captain’s hat following him.

“The Ark?” Aziraphale asks.

“On board. Nothing is lacking now that you are here,” Sallah says taking in the sight of their disheveled clothes and wounded bodies once again, “or should I say, what is left of you.”

“And you trust these people?” Aziraphale feels he has a right to be nervous. Pirates are pirates, after all, even if they come on Sallah’s recommendation.

“Yes, with my life,” Sallah motions the man over to join them. “This is Mr. Katanaga. And Mr. Katanga, these are my friends.” 

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my good fellow,” Aziraphale says, extending his arm for a friendly handshake.

“Love the hat, very spiffy,” Crowley quips from beside him.

“Mr. Katanga,” Sallah says, clapping Aziraphale on the shoulder, “these men are part of my family. I will hear about it if they are not treated well.”

“My cabin is theirs, Sallah,” Katanga says with a glint in his eye, “Dr. Fell, I’ve heard a lot about you. Causing so much trouble, I can dig it. Gotta say, you’re not quite what I’d imagined.” Katanga walks away and boards the ship laughing.

Aziraphale turns to Sallah. “Well, old friend, I guess this is good-bye for now.” Sallah pulls him into a tight hug and he winces at the pain.

“Look after each other, I am already missing you,” Sallah says and lets go, both hands resting on Aziraphale’s shoulders. He lowers his voice, pulling Aziraphale aside. “This one,” he nods over to Crowley, “is better than any of the others I’ve seen you with. Don’t let him get away.”

Aziraphale flashes him an uneasy smile, “Of course not, wouldn’t dream of it. You’re a very good friend Sallah.” It won’t happen again, not if Aziraphale can help it. 

“Nice to meet you, Sallah. Bit of a strange circumstance, but it’s been fun,” Crowley says as he clasps Sallah’s hand in a hearty handshake. He is, of course, also dragged into a bone crushing hug.

“You are a friend of my friend, and therefore a friend to me. You two look after each other, you do well together.”

Aziraphale tries not to notice the red that creeps up Crowley’s cheeks at that as he picks up their bags and heads for the boat. Sallah walks away, cheerfully belting out an old song at the top of his lungs.

“Bit of an odd one, where did you find him?” Crowley asks, taking one of the bags from Aziraphale.

“On a dig down in Thebes, a couple of decades ago now.” Aziraphale often tried to avoid playing favorites with humans. But a good friend was hard to come by, even for someone of angelic stock. Sometimes, every couple of centuries, he’d find one that stuck with him.

“There’s always some good ones, eh?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale nods, sparing a blessing for Sallah and his family- they will find the next several years quite good to them.

—

**_Katanga’s tanker, in the Mediterranean Sea_ **

The ship rocks back and forth as Aziraphale makes his way down the passageway. He’d found Katanga on the deck, who had helpfully given him some washcloths and sent him to the galley for a bowl of warm water.

Small comforts, it seems, would be much welcome right now.

Aziraphale opens the door to the cabin slowly, not sure if Crowley has already fallen asleep. He tends to when he can get a free moment, and this is the freest moment they’ll have for the next several days.

“Where’d you head off to?” Crowley asks without turning to look at him. He’s staring out at the water, stretching for miles under the stars.

“Ah, just thought I’d do a bit of cleaning up.” Aziraphale is a bit apprehensive, a bit overwhelmed, and just this side of dead tired. Both of them are beat to hell, cuts and bruises marking them. Crowley has a gash in his arm still from where the rubble hit him, and Aziraphale can feel his own bruises pulsing and making themselves known. 

“Eh, might as well, I suppose.” Crowley’s voice is small. Tired and wounded. Aziraphale hates seeing the look that’s on Crowley’s face. That exhaustion, seeping into the demon’s very bones. It has to be; it’s seeping into Aziraphale’s, too.

“I’m sorry, you know,” Aziraphale says softly, “for so many things, really.”

“You don’t need to be, angel.” Crowley doesn’t look away from the porthole. Moonlight is streaming through, catching in the auburn waves of his hair. Dancing in the golden yellow of his eyes. Aziraphale often wonders what Crowley looked like as an angel, if he had known him then. Something tells him this might be a close approximation, and if it is there’s no possibility of Aziraphale having known him before the fall.

There’s no way Aziraphale would ever forget someone so beautiful as to leave him this awestruck.

“I really believe I do though,” Aziraphale says, worrying at the ring on his little finger, “if I hadn’t dragged you into this mess-”

“If I’m remembering right, I put myself into it when I demanded to come with you, the demon hunter and the car chase weren’t your fault.” Crowley turns to look at him and winces at the effort. There’s a deep bruise on his neck where he hit the steering wheel.

“At least let me help with those,” Aziraphale says, gesturing to the bruises. He walks over to the wash basin to get a fresh cloth.

“No, angel, you really don’t-”

“I’ll hear none of it,” Aziraphale says, sitting on the edge of Crowley’s bunk. He brings the cloth up to gently wipe some of the grime away from Crowley’s neck, ghosting gently over his collarbone and the hollow of his throat.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathes his name more than says it, and he can feel how tense Crowley is at this contact. Aziraphale’s hand stops, still gently pressing the warm, wet cloth to Crowley’s clavicle.

“Please, just let me take care of you for once.” Aziraphale knows it sounds like begging. In a way, he supposes, it is. Though what for, he’d dare not say. Crowley stares into his eyes, no sunglasses to shield them, and slowly nods, letting him continue.

Aziraphale sets the cloth to the side and shifts just a hint of divinity to his fingertips. Slowly and gently, fingertips barely touching skin, he runs two fingers along the bruise. It shimmers out of existence in the wake of them. Crowley shudders under his hand, closing his eyes and craning his neck back.

“Does that feel better, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, fingers hovering just over where the bruise ended, right at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Crowley slowly opens his eyes, looking everywhere except into Aziraphale’s own. These are not touches that they share, not ever in their long history together. An intention, an unspoken meaning, sits there and waits to have voice.

Rather than answer, Crowley takes hold of Aziraphale’s hand. His other hand rolls up the angel’s shirtsleeve, uncovering a rather gruesome looking gash. Crowley looks from the wound to Aziraphale’s face.

“Does it hurt here?” Crowley asks him, his fingers tracing just under the wound.

“Yes,” Aziraphale answers, barely a breath. He feels the cool spike of Crowley’s diabolical energies alight in the demon’s fingertips. With the barest bit of pressure, Crowley runs them slowly along the cut and it disappears. Crowley’s hand moves down the length of his arm, stopping at the angel’s wrist. Crowley looks back up at Aziraphale, his golden eyes searching the angel’s blue ones, while he gently traces circles on Aziraphale’s wrist with his thumb. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, swallowing hard, “where else does it hurt?”

Crowley lets go of Aziraphale’s wrist and runs his hand along his ribs. “Here.”

Before Aziraphale can even think twice about it, he’s running the palm of his hand under Crowley’s shirt. Slowly and gently, he runs it along Crowley’s rib cage, ethereal energies flowing through his palm to ease the pain, mend the muscle.

Their faces are so close, mere inches apart. Aziraphale’s hand has stilled, right over Crowley’s heart. The scattershot beat of it is more than a match for Aziraphale’s own.

“Angel,” Crowley whispers, reaching out with a shaky hand towards the split in Aziraphale’s lip, stopping just short. “Does it hurt there?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale barely has the word out before he feels the featherlight touch of the thumb to his lips, leaving a little demonic miracle in its wake, healing the split entirely. Crowley’s hand comes to rest on Aziraphale’s cheek, and the angel can’t help but lean into it.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says his name like it’s his last breath as a dying man. He’s gazing at him with such devotion and love that it makes Aziraphale weak in the knees.

Aziraphale sees it coming, he could stop it. Could push away, turn to his own bunk and sleep it off. Forget all about this in the morning. But oh, how could he forget that look of longing in Crowley’s eyes now?

The moment goes on for what seems like eternity before Crowley breaks, reaching for Aziraphale with his other hand, crashing their lips together. His hands are on either side of Aziraphale’s neck, fingers twinning in his curls. He breaks off entirely too soon but doesn’t go far. He leans their foreheads together, thumbs stroking lightly along Aziraphale’s cheeks.

“That was probably a bad idea…” Crowley says but doesn’t move away, doesn’t let go of Aziraphale’s face. Aziraphale leans in and kisses him again, a bare brush of lips, soft and gentle.

“I think it’s rather been a long time coming, dearest.”

With that confession they fall together. Crowley’s hands grip into Aziraphale’s curls as he wraps his arms tightly around the demon, holding him closer than he’d ever dared.

They sink backwards onto the bunk, side by side, trading soft kisses and unspoken words as the moonlight dances on the sea. They hold each other close, legs entwined, fingers carding through hair, hands roaming expanses once forbidden and now welcomed.

“Never thought I’d get to do this,” Crowley says softly as he kisses down the line of his neck. Aziraphale tilts his head further into the pillow to give him more space to roam, Crowley’s lips like a brand on his skin, one he’s wanted for so very long.

“Never thought I’d get to let you.” Aziraphale is breathless as Crowley brings their lips together again, licking into his mouth and exploring with his forked tongue.

This, Aziraphale thinks, was worth all of it. The slow decaying orbit of the two of them, finally collapsing into singularity. He trails his hands down and under the hem of Crowley’s shirt and he thinks, if nothing else, this is how heaven should be.

\---

14 \- Sure, he may have a set goal in mind now. But it’d be a shame to waste too much good alcohol.

15 \- Of course the hierarchy of angels is not knowledge humanity is actually privy to, at least not in any logical sense. Different religions have their own ideas (however many of these were influenced by a certain fussy angel and a certain lazy demon notwithstanding). Either way, one thing was certain: The likenesses were way off.

16 \- Unbeknownst to Crowley, snakes did, in fact, have the means to form organizations. All joking aside, as we will see later.

17 \- This destination would, in turn, be the actual Nazi base of operations. Where the hissed chants of “less work more rats” and “snunions snave snives” would fall on German ears that were not made to pick up the nuances of snake language. This would culminate in a horde of angry snakes toppling a guard tower and setting fire to a gasoline truck. Unable to organize  _ indeed _ .

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks as always to Narumikaiko for the beta read, Lurlur for the britpick, and for this chapter to sosobriquet for making sure I wrote horses properly xD


	5. You'd Better Come Get Me Then

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sidenote for this chapter, the lovely and amazing and wonderful [Cassie-Oh](https://cassieoh.carrd.co) surprised me with art for the ending, and I cried about it a lot, I still am! <3 
> 
> This has been a fun ride, and now I present to you all, the conclusion.

**_The Bantu Wind, the next morning_ **

It’s not the sunlight through the porthole that wakes him up. Not the gentle rocking of the boat on the waves. Not Crowley coiled around him like the snake he is, nuzzling into his neck and mumbling in his sleep.18

It’s a lack of sound, actually. The engines that had hummed on throughout the journey have stopped completely in the morning light, which is very unusual. 

With more than a little difficulty (partly from how clingy Crowley is, partly from just not wanting to leave) he extracts himself from the demon’s embrace. Crowley sleepily reaches for him, not yet cognizant of the world around them. His hand lands on Aziraphale’s pillow from the night before, and he pulls it to his chest and buries his face in it. It’s endearing as anything and makes Aziraphale want to climb back into the bed and wrap Crowley up in his arms, maybe stay that way for a few weeks.

It can’t last though, this thing they’ve started. No, once this is over and they’re back in London they’ll have to go their separate ways. This would be considered treason by either side, and the punishment for that would be a world without the other. Death for them both, most likely. No, best to move on from it. 

Aziraphale pulls his clothes back on and watches Crowley sleep for just a moment. Watches the sunlight streak across his pale skin, watches the rise and fall of his breathing as he nuzzles closer into the pillow. He commits it to memory, all of it. No matter how many centuries go by, Aziraphale will never forget how it felt to kiss Crowley and to hold him tight. To wake up wrapped in his arms.

Angels are not supposed to want. Angels are not supposed to have this single-minded love for one being above others, unless that being is God Herself. It’s against everything in his nature to feel the way he does. But his heart aches with it. This  _ want _ to love and to be loved, the way humans do. The desire to have that with  _ Crowley _ .

Crowley starts to stir and Aziraphale quickly looks away, busying himself gathering up his odds and ends into his satchel.

“What’s going on?” Crowley mumbles from the bunk. Aziraphale looks back to him. He’s blinking slowly, eyes fully yellow in the early morning haze, glowing in the shadow of the sun through the window. He’s still holding on to the pillow, and he’s staring at Aziraphale so openly and so lovingly that the angel feels his corporation might just give out.

“Engines have stopped,” Aziraphale says, schooling his face and looking away, “I’m going to go speak with Katanga, see what’s going on.”

Crowley perches himself on the edge of the bed and reaches for Aziraphale’s hand. Despite his better judgment, Aziraphale lets himself be pulled back over and into an embrace.

“What’s this for?” Aziraphale hears his voice waver as he asks. He’s not ready for this conversation, not quite so soon.

“Just because I can,” Crowley says, breathing in deeply. 

“Crowley, we shouldn’t…” He can feel the sting at the corner of his eyes as he trails off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Wanting Crowley to insist for once, just this once, on what he knows the demon wants.

“You’re right,” Crowley whispers into his shirt, breath warm against Aziraphale’s skin through the cotton. That’s not what he’d wanted to hear. He wanted pushback, wanted Crowley to shout at him, to push him into doing what he should be brave enough to do on his own. 

Crowley looks up at him, hurt evident on his face, but he doesn’t push. Aziraphale runs his hand gently through Crowley’s hair, pushing it back off his face, trailing his fingertips slowly. Crowley leans into the touch, savoring it. 

“You understand,” Aziraphale pleads in a whisper, “please tell me you understand.”

Crowley locks his eyes with Aziraphale as he turns and kisses the angel’s palm, “yeah, angel. I do.” Aziraphale kisses his forehead and then turns to leave.

He makes his way through the ship, finding Katanga on the bridge with a pair of binoculars.

“What’s happened, why have we stopped?”

“Ah, Dr. Fell, see for yourself,” Katanga says, passing him the binoculars, “we have some very important friends.”

“Oh bugger.”

There’s a German U-boat approaching, and quite swiftly at that. Soldiers and officers standing on deck along with Belloq. 

“I sent my man for you; you and your friend must disappear.” Katanga says, herding him towards the bridge door. “We have a place in the hold, they won’t look there, go, go!” 

Aziraphale rushes back towards he and Crowley’s quarters, ducking through shipping crates, making his way through those narrow corridors. He slams the door open, but finds the cabin empty.

“Dammit, Crowley,” he mutters under his breath as he takes to the hallway again, weaving through the pirates running around preparing the ship to be boarded.

He rushes between the shipping crates, looking for a place to hide. Suddenly, someone reaches out and grabs him by the arm, pulling him into a very cramped space between two crates.

“Shhhhh…” Crowley hisses at him, putting a finger to the angel’s lips and keeping a firm hold on his shoulder. “Little demonic miracle, they shouldn’t see us but they can still hear.” Aziraphale has a vague rush of memory from the night before, of the soft touches they exchanged.

On either side of the small opening soldiers pass by. They both stay stock still, not daring to breath. Crowley lets go as soon as they’re gone, and Aziraphale can still feel the ghost of his hand on his shoulder.

They peer out from around the corner. Katanga stands in the center of the deck, facing them. A soldier has a gun pointed to his head, and the rest of the pirates are held back by soldiers pointing guns in their directions. An officer stands with his back to them, flanked by both Belloq and the man in black.

“Herr Colonel,” a soldier runs up to the officer and salutes, “There’s no trace of Dr. Fell yet sir, or the demon.”

Katanga quirks his eyebrow at that. One might not have noticed if they weren’t looking, or if they didn’t have the observational advantage of celestial beings older than literal time itself.

“Well,  _ Captain _ ,” the officer sneers, “where is Dr. Fell?”

“Dr. Fell is dead,” Katanga says with a seriousness that could chill bones, “I killed him myself. He was of no use to us.”

Belloq steps forward, fisting his hands in Katanga’s shirt. “And the demon? Where is he?”

“Patience monsieur,” the man in the black hat says, “it won’t do to threaten above your…heh… station.” Belloq lets go and steps away.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Katanga says through a sneer, “Dr. Fell boarded this ship alone.”

“Oh bless this captain,” Aziraphale says a little too happily under his breath as Crowley shoots him a look. “What?”

“Can you go five minutes without getting overwhelmed by the goodness of humanity?”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes but stops midway, “Crowley, look!” There’s a loud squeaking coming from the other side of the deck as a pulley system lifts a large crate out of the hold. “They’ve got the Ark.”

“We’ll get it back, angel, don’t worry.” Crowley says it almost flippantly, like there’s not any worry to be had in the first place. Aziraphale shouldn’t find it as comforting as he does.

“Herr Colonel,” Katanga continues, “this cargo that you’re taking, if this is what you seek, please go in peace with it. We don’t want any trouble.”

A look crosses the colonel’s face as though he just caught a whiff of rotten eggs, “ _ Savage _ , you are not in the position to ask for  _ anything _ . We will take what we wish, and then decide whether or not to blow your ship from the water.”

“What about the demon, Dietrich?” Belloq says to the officer, still on his one track thought process, “I require him for my research; we need to search the ship again.”

“We will not be searching the ship again, monsieur,” the man in black says as he adjusts his gloves, “we will be taking our leave now, isn’t that right, Herr Dietrich?”

“Yes…” Dietrich says rather reluctantly. “Yes, I suppose we will.”

Aziraphale and Crowley watch as the Ark is transferred to one of the dinghies and they watch as it reunites with the u-boat. Ark safely on board, Katanga and the pirates are released and Aziraphale is finally able to breathe. They wait until all of the Nazis have left the boat before coming out of hiding.

“Mister Katanga, we can’t thank you enough—”

“Dr. Fell, I made a promise to Sallah to look after your well-being. It wouldn’t do if it made it back to him that I had not.” He turns to Crowley. “Is what the man says true, are you a demon?”

“Nah, I’m the Jersey Devil.” This earns him a swat on the arm from Aziraphale, truth or not.19

Katanga just shakes his head, resigned to not get a real answer, “I am sorry, my friends. But at least you get away with your life.”

“I’m afraid we must go after them, the object they’ve stolen has a great power- far too dangerous to be in their hands.” Aziraphale says and looks to Crowley, who nods.

“Dreadfully sorry, friend,” Crowley snaps his fingers and time around them freezes. “Always love doing that parlor trick.” He cracks his neck and manifests his wings, kicking off from the deck. “Well, come on then, we’ve gotta follow them!”

Aziraphale heaves a sigh and manifests his own, shining white and shimmering with just a bit of gold if you look at just the right angle. He walks over to the edge of the boat and shakes his wings out just a bit. Before taking off he turns to everyone frozen in place. “May you all wake having dreamt of whatever you like best,” he kicks off the side of the boat, swooping down towards the water before soaring up to meet Crowley. Crowley snaps his fingers and they take off as the crew come back to their senses.

It’s been a long time since Aziraphale has had his wings out, far longer than he’d like to admit. He’s out of practice and it shows as they fly away from the boat. He falters in the wind, almost falling out of the sky. 

“Alright there, angel?” Crowley asks as he grabs him by the arm, looking calm as anything. 

He’s beautiful here, soaring through the air. Aziraphale realizes with a sudden clarity that he hasn’t seen Crowley’s wings since Eden. That fateful day on the wall, watching humanity make their first steps into the world. He wonders, if he had known where they would be now, what he would’ve changed. If he and Crowley would be the way they are now, would care about each other at all.

“Bit out of practice, it seems.” He glances to where Crowley’s hand rests on his elbow.

“Right, sorry,” Crowley says, letting go carefully so as not to knock Aziraphale out of the air. “Forgot, not allowed.” There’s a bitterness in his voice that Aziraphale desperately wishes he could soothe. 

“I’m sorry, Crowley, it’s just—”

“Yes, I know, I get it. Fucking ‘respective sides’ and ‘fraternizing with the enemy’, it’s fine. I get it, I really do.” 

Aziraphale searches for something,  _ anything _ , to say to fix this. But there’s nothing there. He’s a coward and he  _ wants _ , but he can’t do this. He can’t give Crowley what he wants, it would be the end of both of them.

“Lets just find the Ark and be done with it, yeah?” Crowley says as he flaps his wings hard, zooming off ahead of Aziraphale towards the u-boat fading in the distance. Aziraphale trails behind him, lost in his own thoughts.

Aziraphale realizes, with a startling clarity, that if he could go back to Eden... If he could change anything about the course of his life from that point — he wouldn’t. Not for anything in all of creation.

\---

**_Inside the German U-Boat, on the Aegean Sea_ **

“With all due respect, you  _ know _ they were still on that steam tanker!” Belloq shouts as he follows Dietrich and Toht through the belly of the u-boat. The lights on the panels flash and pulse and the air is thick with humidity.

“Monsieur, you are not seeing the big picture here.” Toht says as they reach the bridge, catching up with the captain and the helmsmen as they make their way across the Aegean sea. “They want the Ark, we have the Ark.”

Dietrich looks through the periscope and cracks a smile, “Besides, Monsieur Belloq,” he says, turning the periscope towards him, “we’re already being followed.”

Belloq peers through the periscope and sees him, great black wings soaring through the sky.

“This time,” Toht says as he hands Belloq his ring back, “I want no mistakes, Monsieur Belloq.” Dietrich snorts a laugh and Toht turns to him, “And what is funny, hmm?”

“Nothing, Herr Toht, nothing at all,” Dietrich says, schooling his face.

“I should hope not; when we get to the base, you are to defer to Monsieur Belloq. We want the unsealing of the Ark to happen properly, I won’t have you messing that up. And afterwards we will take both the Ark and the demon back to Berlin.” A sneer spreads across Toht’s features as he laughs to himself, like he just heard a joke that no one else was privy to.

\---

**_Geheimhaven, secret German Naval base north of Crete_ **

Crowley lands on the roof of the u-boat, black wings slipping back to the ether, boots clinking on the metal. Aziraphale isn’t far behind him, fluffy white wings disappearing, albeit a bit haphazardly with a puff of feathers. Aziraphale had never been able to keep up with proper grooming.

They duck down when a large metal door affixed to the side of the island opens and the u-boat slips into a large cavern, fitted with scaffoldings and ramps. A full military base dug out of the earth. As the u-boat drifts in, they jump across to the scaffolding, hiding behind some crates and stacked supplies. 

Almost as soon as the u-boat comes to a stop, a crane is moved into position and the Ark is lifted out of the submarine. 

“We’ll have to get closer than this,” Aziraphale says, stating the obvious.

Crowley looks around for something, some kind of diversion. He spies a group of soldiers heading their direction. “Quick, duck.”

They crouch behind the crates as the soldiers pass. One of them takes up a position right in front of them. It can’t possibly be this easy. Crowley snaps his fingers and the soldier falls backwards. Aziraphale shoots him a look.

“What? He’s asleep, is all.” Crowley says as he drags the man up over the supply pile. He layers the green jacket over his black shirt and switches out the pants and boots. “See, perfect disguise!”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes at him and with a flourish of a snap and a bit of a huff his clothes change entirely to match that of one of the soldiers. “There are easier ways to do things.”

“Seriously?”

“Barely counts as a miracle, really.” And there it is, that double look, the one he can’t ignore and the one he can’t do anything about. Aziraphale can be frustratingly endearing with his little wiggles and quirks. Even more so after the previous night.

Stupid really, to think anything could come of it. He knows now, at least. These feelings aren’t just his own. He’d seen it there, in Aziraphale’s eyes as he pleaded with him to understand. Demons don’t feel love like angels do, but it had sparked through Aziraphale’s hand, there where it cupped his cheek. He still feels the ghost of that touch, doing his best to stitch it to his skin so he can hold onto it forever.

It’ll take him a while, but he’ll be content with their friendship. If that’s all Aziraphale will let him have, it’ll have to be enough.

“Alright, not a big deal, just a mild bit of subterfuge,” Aziraphale says as they work their way closer to the Ark and to Belloq, “try to act natural.”

“I am acting natural,” Crowley scoffs, almost offended.

“I was talking to myself,” Aziraphale admits a bit sheepishly.

They manage to take up positions near the gangplank, watching as the crate is opened and the poles are slid into place in the loops on the sides of the Ark. Four soldiers lift and carry it right past them, not sparing a glance. 

Even with the lid sealed, Crowley can feel the holy energy prickle at his skin. A sharp tingling, like a limb that’s fallen asleep and is very reluctantly waking back up.

“The altar has been prepared in accordance with your radio instructions, sir,” another soldier says to Belloq, saluting him despite the look of disdain he gets for doing so.

“Good, good,” Belloq says, smug smile on his face, “we must take the Ark there immediately.” The soldier nods and hurries off to deliver the message.

“Monsieur,” Dietrich says to him, voice extremely small and lacking in authority. Crowley’s heard voices like that before, once the threats start rolling in downstairs.

“Oh he’s a bit scared now, isn't he?” Crowley says as he elbows Aziraphale in the ribs.

“Shhh… you’ll get us caught.”

“I am…uncomfortable with the thought of this…” Dietrich continues, shifting from one foot to the other, “…this Jewish ritual. Are you sure it’s necessary?”

“Let me ask you this—” Belloq smiles and claps him on the shoulder, walking with him to the front of the caravan, directly past where Crowley and Aziraphale stand “—Would you be more comfortable opening the Ark in Berlin, for your Fuhrer? Finding out, only then, if the sacred pieces of the Covenant are still inside?”

Dietrich shakes his head, looking scared. The man in black joins them. “I would say then,” he says, “let us not waste any more time. We will do this silly ritual of yours, Monsieur Belloq. After that, we return to Berlin.”

“Yes of course, Herr Toht,” Belloq follows him, along with the soldiers. Aziraphale and Crowley fall in line with the rest of the group, bringing up the rear.

They march with the caravan, out of the base and into the open air of a rocky outcropping, onwards into a narrow canyon. Crowley isn’t sure what the plan is here, other than just following them around. They can’t miracle the Ark gone, can’t even touch the thing.

Aziraphale grabs his arm and pulls him behind a smattering of rocks. “Time to come up with a plan.”

“Come up with a plan? You don’t already have one?” 

“To be quite honest, I’m making it up as I go.” And there’s the furrowed brow, the thoughts turning in his head.

“Tell me, Aziraphale, have you had any kind of plan whatsoever at any point during this whole—” he gestures vaguely, “— _ thing _ ?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale says, shocked and appalled. “How could you insinuate such a thing! As though I’d drag us into something with no thought as to how to get out of it! The very  _ idea _ —”

“So no plan then?”

Aziraphale sighs, resigned. “No, not really.”

“Oh for the love of Satan,” Crowley says leaning his head back against the rocks and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“I think,” Aziraphale says slowly, “we need a distraction.”

“A distraction? Why?” Crowley groans and opens his eyes, “Aziraphale what the actual fuck?”

“Well, I’d need to get in position—”

“—Aziraphale—”

“—And a distraction would give me the time I need to climb up to higher ground—”

“— _ Angel— _ ” 

“—And then I can just destroy the Ark myself and it won’t matter—”

“ _ Aziraphale!”  _ Crowley finally shouts.

“Yes?” Aziraphale says, stuttering to a stop in his rambling.

“What. The fuck. Is that?” Crowley gestures to the small round object in Aziraphale’s hand. “ _ Please _ tell me that is not what I think it is

“Well…it’s a hand grenade.”

“A  _ hand grenade _ , Aziraphale. Where the heaven did you even  _ get _ a hand grenade?!”

“I found it on the boat! I thought it might be useful!”

“Let me get this straight,” Crowley says, feeling the very strong beginnings of a headache, “you saw a grenade back on the pirate ship and just nicked it because you thought it might be  _ useful _ .”

“Yes! And if we can destroy the Ark with it then this whole thing will be over!” Aziraphale gives him a pleading look and Crowley, despite everything else, knows that he’s right. Their powers are useless to destroy this thing; they’ll have to rely on human ingenuity.

“So, a distraction?” Crowley asks and Aziraphale nods. “Think I can manage that.” He turns to leave and Aziraphale grabs him by the elbow.

“Wait, Crowley,” Aziraphale says fearfully, “They’ll capture you again.”

“Probably,” Crowley says in a way he hopes comes across as brave, “You better come get me, then.” He looks back at Aziraphale and sees a look he can’t place on the angel’s face.

Aziraphale squeezes his arm, a promise, “Always, my dear. I’ll always come back for you.”

Crowley smirks at him and steps out from behind the rocks. He loosens his hold on reality, lets his fangs slip loose and his wings unfurl. Shivers at the feeling of skin turning to scales, running up his spine and up the line of his neck, all the way to his hairline. His hands shift and twist, lengthening into lizard-like claws. He stretches his spine and cracks his neck.

“If you’re gonna go,” he says with a sneer, voice echoing across dimensions, “might as well do it with style.”

He lets out a guttural screech and takes to the sky, soaring up high as the soldiers and officers run screaming below him. He sees Aziraphale off to his left, scaling the cliffside and looking for a vantage point. 

Crowley dives for the soldiers, taking out several as he goes, sharp claws ripping through uniforms and skin, bowling them over. He screeches again, hellfire erupting from his throat, climbing into the sky. He trains his eyes on his most intended target, the man in black.

“You,” Crowley snarls, “I have a bone to pick with you.” He lunges forward, wings folding back to increase his speed, one clawed hand extended for Toht’s throat, ready to take his revenge. He’s inches away, Toht’s face is full of fear —

He stops, hanging in mid air. He knew this was coming, of course. But he’d hoped to take a few more out on his way down. His scales recede, claws retract, fangs shrink back. The wings are the last to go, and he’s back to himself. Standing in his oh-so-human corporation, feeling at once too big and too small.

“Ah, and the prodigal demon returns,” Belloq says, fully focused on him. “Just like we knew he would.”

“Knew?”

“Oh yes,  _ demon _ ,” Dietrich says, circling around to him, “We saw you flying after our boat. The only question we have is, where is—”

“Hello, down there! Lovely day, isn’t it!” Aziraphale calls out from the cliffside.

“Ah yes, Dr. Fell! We figured you wouldn’t be far behind!” Belloq shouts to him, laughing all the while, “And what do you intend to accomplish here?”

“Well, Monsieur Belloq, you really haven’t given me much of a choice,” Aziraphale holds up the grenade and the soldiers train their rifles on him, “I’m going to blow up the Ark!”

“Such persistence! It surprises even me!” Belloq motions for the soldiers to lower their weapons, “You’re going to give mercenaries a bad name if you keep this up.”

“Surely you don’t think you can escape from this island?” Dietrich scoffs.

“That entirely depends on how reasonable we all intend to be. That Ark is not a thing that should be handled by humans, it contains a power that none of you could possibly understand!”

“Is that not the point, Dr. Fell?” Belloq shouts, arms extended wide, “Is that not our  _ job _ as archaeologists to understand? You would blow it up rather than even attempt?”

“I would do what is necessary for the good of humanity, you can’t say the same for yourself.” He’s biding time, and Crowley realizes why. He’s too close to the Ark- if Aziraphale throws the grenade now, Crowley will be discorporated.

Toht motions to the soldiers and they train their weapons on Aziraphale again. Crowley can’t stop himself from struggling against his invisible bonds. “Just do it, Aziraphale! I’ll come back! It’s not the end of the world!”

Fear passes over Aziraphale’s face and he falters for just a moment before steeling himself again. Belloq looks back and forth between the two of them, realization dawning on his face.

“Oh, this is beautiful, isn’t it? Dr. Fell, have you grown attached to this demon? Or has he just grown attached to you,” Belloq takes out his gun and holds it against Crowley’s temple, “Why don’t we find out?”

“You wouldn’t, you need him!” Aziraphale shouts, “They’ll never take you seriously without him!”

“They’ll take me just as seriously with a dead body as they would with a live one, at least for my purposes,” Belloq cocks the pistol and presses it harder into Crowley’s temple.

“Don’t listen to him, Aziraphale! Pull the pin! Do it!”

Aziraphale’s face falls, and so does his hand. Soldiers come around behind him, latching his wrists behind his back. 

And Crowley knows why; knows Aziraphale couldn’t condemn him back to Hell like that. Heaven is paperwork, that much is certain, but Hell…

There’s no telling what he would go through, what he’d have to do to get back. Make no mistake, he would. He’d claw his way back up through the earth with his bare hands to get back to Aziraphale. But would he even be given the chance?

“I’m sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale says as he hangs his head, “I can’t do it, I can’t hurt you.”

\---

**_The Altar on the Island, the Opening of the Ark_ **

Aziraphale stands tied to a large pole, Crowley frozen in place beside him. There are spotlights and generators around them, at least forty soldiers. Across from them, separated from them by a wide stretch of stone, stands Belloq and the others. 

Belloq has donned some bizarre ceremonial garb, dotted with gemstones. Nothing like anything Aziraphale has ever seen, he’s not sure where this ritual Belloq is using has come from. Dietrich looks like he might soon be sick, and Toht is giggling like a school boy. 

Belloq chants in the language of God’s chosen people, empty words from a man with no faith. Aziraphale is biding his time. He could break the ropes at any point, but Crowley would still be stuck, held fast by the Seal of Solomon on Belloq’s finger. As long as Belloq can spare a focus for it, Crowley can’t move.

So Aziraphale waits.

“Aziraphale, if they open that-”

“I know, Crowley.”

“But everyone here—”

“No great loss.”

“But I can’t even move, it’ll destroy—”

Aziraphale snaps his head around to look at Crowley as much as he can while they’re standing back to back, tied to this stake in the ground. “Darling, if I wouldn’t give you holy water for fear of your destruction, do you think I would let whatever comes out of that Ark harm a single hair on your head?”

“You don’t get to decide that, Aziraphale.”

“I don’t get to decide a lot of things,” Aziraphale says, shifting his arms in the ropes. “That’s never stopped me before.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Aziraphale can’t answer anything to this. Crowley might as well be a statue and there’s a very real chance the holy light in the Ark could destroy him, just as thoroughly and completely as holy water could. He shifts the rope a little bit further, still waiting for a cue. Below them, two Nazi soldiers lift the lid off of the Ark.

“Angel I have to tell you—”

“Don’t talk like that, Crowley.”

“But if it’s now or never, Aziraphale—”

“I said don’t talk like that, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Below them, Belloq and Toht are arguing about the apparent lack of contents of the Ark. The generator powering the spotlights sparks and shorts out, arcs of electricity shooting across the ground and among the soldiers. Almost there, any moment now.

“Aziraphale please I have to tell you that I—”

“Dearest, I already know. Tell me when this is over.” Aziraphale wriggles in the rope just enough to be able to entwine his fingers with Crowley’s. “When this is over, you can tell me every day.”

And he means it, despite his reservations. Despite anything that could happen to them. He wants to hear it, wants to say it. Wants to be with Crowley for the rest of eternity. He’s never wanted anything more.

A bright glow starts to emanate from the Ark. The beginning of the hell these idiot Nazis’ hubris has wrought upon them. Ghosts of those long dead drift like puffs of smoke, encircling and entrapping the Nazi soldiers. 

“Yes! It’s beautiful!” Belloq shouts. 

The glow shifts to a fiery orange, one Aziraphale can feel the heat from even at his far position from it. A great pillar of light bursts forth from the Ark, as a wave of holy energy washes over the landscape.

At the same moment, Aziraphale’s wings burst forth from the ether, tearing the ropes to shreds. He wraps them around Crowley, hoping he hasn’t missed his moment, hoping that it’s enough to protect him. 

“Just keep your eyes closed, darling, don’t look.”

He holds Crowley as tightly to his chest as he can, watches the holy fire jump from soldier to soldier, burning them from the inside out.

Belloq and the other two scream as they peer down into the Ark, seeing things that mortal eyes were never meant to. It’s one thing to want a direct line to talk to God, it’s another thing entirely to comprehend what that actually means.20

Belloq’s concentration lapses and Crowley falls limp in Aziraphale’s arms. He wraps his wings tighter around the both of them.

Toht looks up at him, eyes wide. Aziraphale stares back, full of angelic fury. His other eyes blink into existence across his face, glowing blue and full of anger. His halo makes itself known, lighting above his head, a blinding thing for any mortal to see. 

The man points, making to shout and alert the other two, but before he can, a loud noise not unlike a banshee erupts from the box - an inhuman sound, but not that of Heaven or Hell. 

Toht’s skin starts to bubble as he screams, and Aziraphale watches as it melts off of his bones. Belloq and the officer are soon to follow, their skeletons crumpling to the ground, jewels on Belloq’s robes glittering in the firelight.

Aziraphale holds Crowley tight as the winds rush by them, strong enough to knock over the spotlights, whipping the lid of the Ark up into the air. “Stay with me, Crowley, it’s almost over,” he says, hoping to anything that he’s right.

There’s a great roaring in the air and the pillar of fire grows, reaching up into the sky, a final death knell before it starts to die down. The lid from the Ark falls and slams directly on the box.

Aziraphale finally opens his eyes in the stillness and silence that follow. The only living things left in this valley are himself and Crowley. The quiet is an eerie calm compared to the calamity of moments before.

He shakes out his wings, sand falling from the feathers. They’ll be a pain to groom out later, but worth it because _ they’ve both survived _ . His halo still pulses faintly above his head as the dust settles.

“Crowley, Crowley we made it,” he says softly, brushing the demon’s hair away from his temple, wiping some of the soot off of his cheek. “It’s over, we’re ok.”

Crowley doesn’t respond, just lies limp in Aziraphale’s arms. “Crowley, darling, this isn’t the time for jokes.” Aziraphale says, shaking him ever so slightly. He can feel the panic rising in his bones, in the core of him. Every breath that Crowley doesn’t take is another confirmation. The smoke seeps from his hair, off his skin.

“Crowley, really, wake up!” Aziraphale shouts, sinking to his knees, cradling Crowley against his chest. “This isn’t funny anymore, wake up!” The tears sting his eyes, tracing tracks into the ash on his face. It can’t possibly... He’d protected him, he can’t be...

He shakes Crowley one more time. “Crowley, darling, my dearest, come back.” Crowley’s head just lolls listlessly, his arm falling to the side. Crowley’s body crumples in Aziraphale’s arms, and the angel’s heart crumples right along with it. 

Tears fall unbidden, Aziraphale screams out loud around his own sobs as he twines his fingers through Crowley’s hair, holding him close and shaking with grief. “Please, please, please,” Aziraphale pleads to no one; no one is listening anymore, they haven’t been for a long time. He’s not stupid. He’s known.

“Crowley, don’t,” he cries into Crowley’s hair, sobbing heavily and carding his fingers through the copper curls. “You can’t leave me like this, not now, please. I love you, Crowley, I should’ve told you. I should’ve told you a million times in a million ways. I’ve loved you for so long and I never said, please, you can’t be gone. You can’t leave now. Not when we could….not when we finally….” 

Aziraphale holds Crowley as tight as he can, screwing his eyes shut, trying to bid the tears away. His anger and his grief overcome him and he screams. A lout, guttural thing, no real direction to it. Just a screaming sob of loss, of pain, of loneliness.

“Please don’t go, I can’t do this without you. I can’t….I can’t be on earth without you, Crowley, I can’t…I love you, please, please don’t go, don’t go where I can’t follow you...” Aziraphale babbles as the sobs wreck through his body and he nuzzles his face into Crowley’s hair. He’s so preoccupied with sobbing he doesn’t feel the demon start to stir in his arms.

“Angel,” Crowley says weakly. “Angel, why’re you screaming so much?”

Aziraphale’s tears stop, he pulls back to look Crowley in the eyes, molten gold and bright as ever. He’s got a confused look on his face, like someone just woke him up early from a nap. Aziraphale’s sobs start anew as he cups Crowley’s cheek and crashes their lips together. Desperate and wanting, he pours everything he has and everything he is into it.

“Angel,” Crowley says weakly when they break apart, “what was that for?”

“You’re alive,” Aziraphale says through his sniffling and hiccoughing.

Crowley begins to come back to himself, an inkling of a ridiculous smirk on his face. He’s covered in grime and singed in places, but so unabashedly  _ Crowley _ . 

Aziraphale kisses him again and again. On his lips, his cheek, his forehead, his ridiculous snake tattoo, his temples, anywhere he can get to. “I thought you were gone,” Aziraphale sobs between kisses. “Thought I’d...lost you…”

“Angel, angel, hey,” Crowley says, bringing his hands to rest on either side of Aziraphale’s cheeks, stilling him and wiping away tears. “I’m right here, not going anywhere.” Crowley kisses him softly, reassuringly. Aziraphale lets himself melt into it, into the knowledge that they are both here, that they survived. Crowley’s lips ground him to this moment, to this point of contact between them, bright and beautiful. “I love you, Aziraphale, I’m not going anywhere.” Crowley says as the kiss breaks, leaning his forehead against Aziraphale’s.

Aziraphale sobs again, from happiness this time, as he gathers Crowley up into his arms to kiss him again and again and again. “I love you, too, you insufferable serpent, I have for so long.” 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, kissing his forehead and both of his cheeks, “You came back and got me, after all.”

“Always will, you’ve done as much for me so many times,” Aziraphale holds him close, nuzzles into his neck, “Heaven above, how I love you, Crowley. Let’s go home.” Aziraphale moves to stand, but Crowley can’t seem to make his legs work, his corporation worn out from the brush with holy and divine light. Aziraphale loops one arm around Crowley’s back and the other under his knees, lifting him effortlessly as he kisses him again.

“You are  _ not _ telling anyone you carried me out of here like this.”

“Of course not, dearest.”

“I mean it, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Yes, obviously we wouldn’t want to tarnish your reputation. Being carried by an angel, loving an angel, snogging an angel.”

“Erm..ngk…Fine, point taken. I DO love you, and you said I could say it as much as I wanted once we made it out of here.”

“Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Well then, let the record show that I love you.”

“Of course dear, and I, you.”

“I love you and I want to shout it from the top of a mountain.”

“I think we can arrange that, dearest.”

“I wanna scream it out to all the stars in the sky that I made,” Crowley takes a deep breath and shouts, “I love Aziraphale! You hear that universe! You hear that, God? Most perfect angel you ever made and he’s mine and I love him and he loves me so shove it up your arse!”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and kisses Crowley again as he fluffs out his wings and takes flight.

\---

**_British Intelligence Headquarters. London, England._ **

“So you’re telling me, Dr. Fell,” the man from before, who is still not short, says to him, “that the Ark never existed.”

“I could find no real evidence for it, no. The Nazis seem to have been on a wild goose chase, as it were.”

“A wild goose chase?” The second one, who is still not tall, says, “Despite all of these witness accounts? Despite the disappearance of several high ranking officers  _ and _ a member of the academic community?”

“I can’t account for them, never even saw them while I was there. Tanis is most certainly not the resting place for the Ark.” Aziraphale smiles at them, confident in his ability for misdirection.

“And you, mister…um…”

“Crowley.”

“Yes, Mister Crowley,” the first continues, “you were here for all of this? And your part is?”

“Old associate of Dr. Fell’s, rapscallion and treasure hunter is how some would refer to me.” Crowley smirks and Aziraphale shoots him a stern look, but there’s no bite behind it. How could there ever be now? Now that they’re on the same page.

“And in your opinion—”

“In  _ my _ opinion we’ve been here for hours and you’re getting the same story over and over. Not sure how many times you can ask the same questions and expect different responses.” Crowley leans back in his chair in a show of disregard for authority, and Aziraphale doesn’t need to be able to see past the dark lenses to tell that his eyes are twinkling with mischief.

Heaven above, how he loves him.

“Well, at any rate, you’ve both done your country a great service. At the very least, we know the Nazis have faced a setback.”

“Excellent, we’ll be on our way then,” Aziraphale says, ready to be rid of SIS for once and for all, “been a pleasure to work with you, gentlemen.” He shakes both of their hands with a genuine smile on his face.

“Ah, Mister Crowley,” the one who is not tall says as they turn to leave, “a quick further word with you, if you don’t mind?”

Crowley turns to him and Aziraphale smiles at him. “Go on then, I’ll wait for you outside.”

Aziraphale takes his leave and waits on the steps of the building. It’s another half hour before Crowley comes out, spring in his step and a grin plastered to his face.

“What was that about, dear?” Aziraphale asks as they start down the stairs.

“Got offered a job! Apparently I’m ‘the famous Mister Crowley’ now.” Crowley says still grinning from ear to ear.

“You got offered a job, as a what?”

“As a spy! Super secret subterfuge and such, I’m very good at it, as you know.” 

“Dearest,” Aziraphale says, in the sternest voice he can manage, “Did you use demonic intervention to worm your way into SIS?”

“Erm… well…” Crowley stammers as he trips over his own feet and nearly falls down the steps.

“You  _ did _ , wily old serpent,” Aziraphale chides him but there’s no bite to it.

“You love it.”

“I love you.”

“Same thing, once you get down to it,” Crowley says and offers him an arm, bright smile plastered to his face. It’s a smile Aziraphale is growing more accustomed to seeing, in the early mornings in the bookshop and in the late nights over a glass of wine. “Come on then, angel, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I suppose,” Aziraphale says, looping his arm through Crowley’s, “if you’re not too busy with your new spy shenanigans.” 

“For you, angel? Never. What would you say to the Ritz?”

Aziraphale stares at him, full of love and hope for the future. Things will get difficult, but they’ll have each other to rely on. Just like they always have. An unlikely duo, an even more unlikely love, and yet it all feels just a bit ineffable. “That sounds lovely, darling.”

\---

18 \- Oh but could Aziraphale get used to that without even trying.

19 \- Crowley had had a bit too much alcohol on a trip to the states back in 1735. The rest, as they say, is history.

20 \- It is, of course, beside the point. The Ark had never  _ been _ a direct line to God. It had only ever been what it has always been, a box to store the holiest of artifacts.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! That's the end! Thank you all for coming on this journey with me <3 I'm sad that it's over, but I'm happy that I wrote it xD
> 
> There _may_ be a few more things left to do with this, in the future. A deleted scene from the cutaway on the boat, for one. Maybe a few other things in this universe down the line. But for now, I step away, and I thank you all so very very much for reading <3
> 
> I love all of you! <3 <3


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